Tony Kontzer reports: The phenomenon of medical identity theft is on the rise, and healthcare companies face more challenges in addressing the issue than their counterparts in the financial services industry, a panel of experts agreed Thursday at the RSA 2010 conference in San Francisco. The Federal Trade Commission estimates the number of American patients…
ONC Issues Rule Proposing the Establishment of Certification Programs for Health IT
Sheel Pandya reports: On Tuesday, the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology (Health IT) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a proposed rule that establishes two voluntary certification programs to test and certify health IT. The National Coordinator for health IT is required by the American Recovery…
La Mesa Tax Preparer Guilty of Fraud and ID Theft
A La Mesa tax preparer was convicted Thursday of 32 felony counts related to his business, including identity theft and tax, Social Security and Medi-Cal fraud. Saleh Mahmoud Zahran, 50, was found guilty by a jury of the charges following a two-week trial in U.S. District Court in San Diego. His wife, 35- year-old Maysa…
“Delpiero” to be extradited to U.S. by Malaysia
The Criminal Court on Thursday decided to extradite a Malaysian suspected computer hacker to the United States for further legal action. Gooi Kokseng, alias Delpiero, 44, is wanted by the US for being a member of a gang of credit cards data hackers which had committed computer crime in the US and Southeast Asia causing…
(update) Argos credit-card scandal worsens
Fresh doubts have been raised over the online security of high street retailer Argos, following a PC Pro investigation. Yesterday, we revealed that Argos was sending customers’ unencrypted credit-card numbers and security codes in order confirmation emails, potentially exposing them to online fraud. Now it’s emerged that those very same confirmation emails contain a web…
Patient data stolen from WFUBMC employee’s car
A bag containing a document with the names and Social Security numbers of 554 patients of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center was stolen from an employee’s locked car, medical center officials said today. The theft happened Feb. 15 in the parking deck of an off-campus outpatient clinic, officials said. The list did not include…