The Helsinki Times reports that a publicly available computer at a Prague hotel contained the passport numbers and itineraries of about 200 leaders from EU member states who gathered there April 5 for an EU-US summit. The breach has been attributed to human error. The breach was discovered by a Finnish tourist who used the…
FairPoint probes on security breach
FairPoint Communications Inc. says a worker’s failure to abide by security precautions caused a portable data-storage device containing employee information to disappear from an undisclosed FairPoint office. The device contained information for all current FairPoint employees and some former employees, or about 4,400 individuals in total. Such data may have included names, home addresses and…
HK: Data of 15,000 NUS alumni leaked
Tan Weizhen reports: Computer security is being beefed up across the National University of Singapore (NUS) after sensitive data of more than 15,000 alumni members was leaked in an e-mail. On April1, the NUS Career Centre sent an e-mail to about 450 NUS alumni, all of whom graduated last year, to invite them to a…
SE: Credit card fraudsters target Ikea
David Landes reports: Police have launched a credit card fraud investigation after employees at an Ikea in central Sweden discovered a suspicious device attached to one of the store’s card payment machines….. Authorities believe the machine was in place for about four hours on Monday and may have been used to collect credit card information…
FL: Fired Hernando County deputy charged with identity theft over e-mails
Joel Anderson reports: The e-mails referred to one of the highest-ranking officers at the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office as “racist.” They alleged discriminatory treatment against some of the deputies. They were supposedly coming from Sgt. George Smith. However, the e-mails were all the work of an online thief, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Former Deputy…
HHS offers health IT privacy guidelines
Brian Robinson reports in Government Health IT: The Health and Human Services Department has begun overhauling the privacy and security rules that govern personal health information, which is considered vital to attempts by Congress and the Obama administration to broaden the adoption of electronic health records. HHS published guidance on April 17 that outlines the…