Gautham Nagesh reports: Senior Democrats on the Senate Commerce Committee introduced a bill on Thursday that would require businesses and nonprofits to implement strong security features in the event of a data breach. Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Commerce Chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) unveiled the Data Breach and Security Notification…
UK: Teenagers accused of running cybercrime ring
Tom Espiner reports: Five people accused of involvement in a UK-based online crime forum have appeared in a London court. Prosecutor Matthew McCabe told City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday that 18-year-olds Nicholas Webber and Ryan Thomas had been involved in the management of a crime forum called GhostMarket.net. Webber is accused of administrating…
CDT breaks down proposed changes to HIPAA
The Center For Democracy and Technology (CDT) just sent out this announcement: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed a set of significant updates to health privacy rules. The proposed rule tackles how sensitive patient information is handled under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which is the nation’s foremost…
Thousands of ‘Subcontractors’ May Soon Have to Comply With HIPAA
AIS’s Health Business Daily has reprinted an article from REPORT ON PATIENT PRIVACY that talks about the expansion of mandates to subcontractors: Perhaps the biggest surprise in HHS’s July 14 proposed rulemaking was a concept that went beyond language contained in the HITECH Act, namely the appearance of the term “subcontractors” in the list of…
United HealthGroup reports second breach involving paper records
For the second time in as many months, United HealthGroup has reported a breach to HHS that involved paper records. Because HHS does not provide a lot of details on its web site, all we know for this latest incident is that 735 individuals were affected by an incident involving “theft, unauthorized access” that occurred…
eBay photocopier data risk ignored
John Leyden reports: The security threat from carelessly ditched computers increasingly applies to a much wider range of office equipment, as sophisticated storage technology finds its way into humble devices such as fax machines and printers. The risk that sensitive documents might make their way into the hands of undesirables was neatly illustrated by a…