Stolen Flash Drive Exposes Data of 1,200 University of Miami Patients
A security breach exposing the data of over 1,200 patients has recently been disclosed by the University of Miami. The Miller School of Medicine patient data was stolen back in November 2011, together with a flash drive, when someone broke into a pathologist’s car and took the briefcase where the portable device was stored.
The flash drive contained details such as age, sex, diagnosis and treatment information for patients treated from 2005 to 2011, the University of Miami disclosed in a press release. No financial information or Social Security numbers had been stored on the drive, according to the same press release. Read more
New report says cyber-attack risk to global stability is great and very real
Security professionals fear cyber-attacks and warn ab0ut them every chance they get. Countries all over the world are trying to put up the best cyber defenses technology advancements can buy, but it does take a well established institution in the field of global economy to actually make us all tremble and finally believe cyber attacks pose a great threat to global stability.
The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Risks for 2012 report places cyber-attacks against governments and businesses among the top five risks in the world to global stability, in terms of likelihood. Cyber-attacks come right after income disparity, fiscal imbalances, and the rising greenhouse gas emissions, shows the report released in WEF’s annual conference held in Davos, Switzerland. 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.”
UK’s ICO takes serious measures to enforce data protection
The ICO conducted an investigation on a case of hardware loss in May at the Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council. The incident consisted in the loss of an unencrypted memory stick by a Council’s finance department employee, stick which contained names, addresses and payment details for 18.000 residents. The missing hardware was not found to the date.
The investigation concluded that the Rochdale Council has breached the Data Protection Act by not providing employees with encrypted memory sticks (although it was a known fact that these devices would be used to transfer private information) and by not training their employees to properly use portable devices for work purposes.
Sally Anne Poole, ICO’s head of enforcement qualifies this mishap as ‘unacceptable’ and says ‘This incident could have been easily avoided if adequate security measures had been in place.’ in a quote by eWeek.
The measures taken by the ICO in this case consist of signing an undertaking of actions to take to implement data protection policies by 31st March 2012.
Let’s hope that more than one private data handling organization learns from this incident and encrypts their portable devices using proper solutions.
2011 Brings Major Changes in the Biggest Data Breaches of All Times Top
While data breaches are as common as any other daily occurrence in the business and individual worlds, the large security incidents don’t happen as often, especially if you think that one of the breaches in the top ten all time largest data exposures dates back to 1984. 2011 is not yet over and it already is the poster child of this top we all want to see unchanged.
2011 is the only year with three major data loss incidents in the top ten: Sony Corporation with 77 million records exposed, SK Communications, Nate, Cyworld with 35 million and again Sony Corporation through their Sony Online Entertainment division with close to 25 million records exposed. Luckily for us, although it featured large incidents, 2011 did not create as many victims as 2009 with its two incidents, Heartland Payment Systems, Tower Federal Credit Union, Beverly National Bank which share the number one position in the infamous top with 130 million records exposed and RockYou Inc. with another 32 million. Read more
Spectrum Health Client Data Stolen With Hard Drive
Health systems company Spectrum has been the victim of a data breach affecting confidential health information of some of their clients. The breach was the result of an electronic device theft, the perpetrators also taking a hard drive that included the medical details. According to Spectrum representatives, the stolen information was not encrypted, but it was double password protected.
The thieves took three electronic devices when breaking in the offices located at 484 Main St. in Worcester in late August, but only one was used to temporarily store personal and protected health information. Read more
Hardware loss in a hospital endangers data of 1.6 million people
Nemours, an American organization for children’s health announces through a press release the loss of three unencrypted backup tapes that contained information such as the name, address, date of birth, social security number, insurance and medical treatment information and bank account information of 1.600.000 patients and employees.
The three backup tapes were stored in a cabinet that might have disappeared during a facility modernization project.
So far, there is no evidence that the tapes were stolen, accessed or used for fraudulent purposes.
Nemours offers free credit monitoring, identity theft protection and call center support.
Find their press release here: http://www.nemours.org/mediaroom/news/2011/missingtapes.html
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
Data breach roundup: Missing hardware
As data storage devices get smaller and easier to carry, the chance of them being stolen or lost goes higher. Thumb drives, laptops, computers, everything shrinks, while storage capacity grows exponentially, great for productivity, awful for unencrypted data. While laptops and USB sticks have always been the easiest to steal or lose, it does not mean that the old fashioned desktop computers cannot share in the same fate.
The result of the following incidents? Exposed data affecting hundreds or thousands, making them perfect targets for identity theft or fraud. Another thing they have in common? You guessed it, they are all part of the healthcare industry! Most of these data breaches can be prevented and it’s a rather simple process. But let’s move on to our list of incidents! 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
