An indictment unveiled in New York today concerning a huge Medicare fraud scheme reveals how both medical professionals and patients may have their identities stolen in furtherance of fraud. And in this case, a data breach years ago provided much of the identity information needed. William K. Rashbaum and Michael Wilson report: An Armenian-American crime…
Is computing healthcare data breach statistics a waste of time?
Over on Technology Liberation Front, Jim Harper responded to my post that asked what can we learn from the first year of HHS breach reports. He starts by taking me to task for seemingly glossing over what he sees as important considerations: …. The post gives extremely light treatment to the possibility—indeed, the likelihood—of noncompliance…
'Scrapers' Dig Deep for Data on Web
Julia Angwin and Steve Stecklow report: At 1 a.m. on May 7, the website PatientsLikeMe.com noticed suspicious activity on its “Mood” discussion board. There, people exchange highly personal stories about their emotional disorders, ranging from bipolar disease to a desire to cut themselves. It was a break-in. A new member of the site, using sophisticated…
MA: Court papers allege Cahill camp laptops stolen
Dave Wedge reports on allegations that laptops containing personal information of campaign donors were stolen for political purposes: Laptops containing personal information of Tim Cahill donors were reported stolen from aides to Paul Loscocco just days before the supporters received requests for contributions to the Charlie Baker campaign, a top Cahill aide claims in new…
A Rochester credit union cancels 3,700 cards following ALDI breach
Earlier today, I noted that ALDI had notified the Maryland Attorney General’s Office that 8,000 Maryland residents might be affected by the recent security breach they experienced. Also today, 13WHAM in New York reported that ESL Federal Credit Union has blocked activity on the credit/debit cards of approximately 3,700 customers because of the breach breach. ESL…
Pointer: Lots of health data breaches reported to HHS, only trivial ones to FTC
Steve Gantz comments on the apparent discrepancy in breach reports received by the FTC from PHR vendors and by HHS: It seems fair to ask, can any substantial conclusions be drawn from the paucity of breaches reported to the FTC or their relative triviality? No one appears to be suggesting that the data protection practices…