Stolen laptop and flash drive expose 7,000 to data theft
The Kansas Department on Aging has recently reported a hardware theft that caused a data breach affecting about 7,000 of its customers. A laptop, a flash drive and paper files were stolen out of an employee’s vehicle, putting thousands of senior customers at risk.
The stolen files contained personal and protected health information belonging mainly to customers located in Sedgwick, Harvey, and Butler counties. The theft was immediately reported to the Wichita Police Department. The Kansas Department on Aging says it is cooperating with the police, but the stolen hardware has not yet been recovered. Read more
Data breach exposes records of 1.8 million New York utilities customers
A data breach affecting 1.8 million customers of two New York utilities companies has recently been made public by the New York State Public Service Commission. The investigation into this data breach was initiated after an employee from a third party IT company contracted by New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) and Rochester Gas and Electric (RG&E) was given unauthorized access to the company’s databases.
It is not clear if accessing the customer databases had any malicious intent, both affected companies claiming there was no proof of any data having been misused as a consequence of the breach. But, to stay on the safe side, they have decided to send out notifications regarding the data access, as it exposed Social Security Numbers, dates of birth and financial account information, as shown in the official press release sent out by the NY Commission. Read more
Zappos and Amazon face consequences of data breach
When you are the lead artist of a security mishaps that ended up in a data breach affecting some 24 million people, consequences are bound to catch up with you. And they just have caught up with shoe retailer Zappos.com and the bigger online fish behind them, Amazon.com. The two companies are being sued by the customers affected by the data breach, being accused of negligence.
A woman from Texas seems to be the main promoter in this Kentucky lawsuit. She claims that she and millions of other customers were harmed by the exposure of their personal account information. Zappos and Amazon have not commented on the lawsuit as of earlier today. Read more
Steam hit by hackers. Are all their 35 million user accounts breached?
Almost two weeks ago, we revealed the major changes that had happened this year in the major data breaches top of all times. 2011 was leading in what the number of high profile of breaches is concerned. The top might change once more, ensuring an even stronger position for the current year as hackers hit Steam, a gaming giant that is home to 35 million user accounts.
What we know so far is that the Steam customer data base has been indeed accessed by hackers.
“We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums,” said Gabe Newell, co-founder and managing director of Steam parent company Valve. “This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information.”
Data breach exposes 40,000 credit and debit cards
A data breach occurring at the Vacationland Vendors arcade games in Wisconsin Dells effected 40,000 credic and debit cards. The incident was caused by hackers who gained access to the card processing systems of the Wilderness Waterpark Resort in the Dells and Wilderness at the Smokies in Sevierville. The breach only affected the arcade systems, those using their credit cards for other services, such as reservations, eating at the resort restaurants or shopping for gifts have not been affected.
According to Vacationland Vendors, the hack was discovered on March 22, but it is believed that all cards used between December 12, 2008, to May 25, 2011. The good news is that the 40,000 cards exposed, company officials believe only 20 were actually impacted by the breach. Read more
Are Hackers Going to Be This Year’s Top News Item?
We have recently written quite a few pieces on hacking, hacker-caused data breaches, and other such incidents. As we kick off the week and this first month of fall, more pieces of news along the same line come to our attention.
Two students hacked into the Birdville Independent School District’s servers and ran across a file containing 14,500 student names, ID numbers as well as social security numbers.
Borlas.net was also the playground of hackers. After managing to access their files, the hackers responsible for the security breach also leaked names, passwords, emails and phone numbers of nearly 15,000 registered users. Read more
New Data Breaches Reported by Healthcare Companies
Hospitals, healthcare services providers, health insurance companies, all those operating in the healthcare segment seem to be particularly vulnerable to data breaches. Their patients and employees’ private details seem to be a frequent target for theft and easy to lose. It seems like this entire industry segment has no idea how to keep their data safe or how to properly dispose of it.
To recent incidents highlight this serious security issue affecting healthcare players. The first incident occurred at Texas Health Partners and Texas Health Flower Mound Hospital. A laptop was stolen from an employee of Texas Health Partners and it happened to contain private details about hospital patients. While the information was not encrypted, the laptop was at least password protected. The stolen notebook contained various details on patients, including name, addresses, medical history and lab test information. The number of affected patients has not yet been disclosed. Read more
Short Data Breach Disclosure Windows, Potentially Damaging to Consumers
We’ve all heard of the mind-blowing cases where it takes companies months and even years to disclose data and security breaches to their customers. They keep the information to themselves, run the investigations and only later release the details to their customers, the direct victims of the breaches. But apparently, blowing the whistle too soon is not a much better idea either, according to security experts.
The debate over which time frame helps customers and which rushed actions actually do more harm was started by the SAFE Data Act data breach law which is now making its way through US committees in an attempt to better regulate what happens when a company is affected by a data breach. The new law requires “companies and other entities that hold personal information to establish and maintain appropriate security policies to prevent unauthorized acquisition of that data.” If passed, it will also make it compulsory for breached companies to inform customers within 48 hours of discovering an incident. Read more
Hackers Target Sony Once More, Thousands of Customer Records Exposed
After the hacking of the PBS network website, Sony’s movie division website was also hacked and at least 50,000 consumer email addresses have published. A group called LulzSec has claimed responsibility for the attack and stated the security breach was made possible by an existing SQL vulnerability.
“What’s worse is that every bit of data we took wasn’t encrypted,” the group wrote in a press release announcing the hack. “Sony stored over 1,000,000 passwords of its customers in plaintext, which means it’s just a matter of taking it. This is disgraceful and insecure: they were asking for it.” Read more
Plymouth hospital notifies 6000 patients of potential security breach
Last month’s disappearance of a laptop from an employee’s locked car has determined Speare Memorial Hospital in Plymouth officials to send letters to 6000 of their patients, warning them of a potential threat against their private information.
The computer in question contained hospital account numbers, medical record numbers, names, addresses, and other patient and health information. However, no Social Security numbers or other sensitive information like insurance information or credit card information were stored on it. As the laptop and the employee’s desktop computer were synced, technicians were able to determine what exactly was lost. Read more
