Following up on a breach previously covered here and here, the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office released this statement yesterday: A Greensboro urgent care center has paid $50,000 because its patients’ financial and medical information were illegally disposed of in a dumpster, Attorney General Roy Cooper announced Friday. “When you share your personal information with…
Ie: ‘Reckless’ data breaches should be prosecuted
Steven Carroll reports: Data protection controllers should face sanctions for deliberate or reckless breaches of information protection law, a Government appointed review group has concluded. The obligations of controllers to report security breaches should be set out in a statutory code of practice, which would outline when disclosure of data breaches is mandatory, and failure…
Lawsuit: Red Flags Rule Violates Doctor/Patient Relationship
Cheryl Clark reports: Medical and osteopathic associations today sued the Federal Trade Commission for covering them under the Red Flags Rule, which will require them to start verifying their patients’ true identities before they agree to treat them, starting June 1. The lawsuit seeks to prevent the FTC from defining physicians as “creditors” whenever they…
Study: ITRC Encouraged by 2009 Victim Aftermath Study
The Identity Theft Resource Center has released its annual Aftermath study. From their press release: For the first time in 7 years, The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC)® can state that it is encouraged by the findings of the Identity Theft: The Aftermath 2009™. It is becoming clear that some areas of great distress in…
Strong notifies patients their bills may have gone to other people
Chris Swingle and Gary McLendon repport: About half of the 2,500 patient bills Strong Memorial Hospital mailed on April 19 went to the wrong patients, and this week the hospital sent letters apologizing to affected people and telling them to be alert to any possible misuse of their information. Spokeswoman Teri D’Agostino said a machine…
Hacker steals 22,000 email address, demands Astley tune
Loek Essers reports: Dutch hacker Darkc0ke hijacked a radio station database containing 22,000 email addresses and threatened to publish them unless the station play Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” a variation of an internet meme known as “rickrolling.” Last weekend Darkc0ke mailed DJs from the Dutch nationwide radio station 3FM and issued his…