A virus exposes private data of 3000 patients of an american clinic
An investigation inside the Living Healthy Clinic of Wisconsin, US has revealed the existence of a virus on a computer in the network that exposed 3000 patient records.
The experts have concluded that the attack was not targeted, as it was reported that the same type of virus was found on other computers in the US that had nothing to do with the clinic.
The information exposed after the attack included names, addresses, social security numbers and medical records of some patients.
The officials will announce the affected persons on the security breach and they will inform them on the measures to take to protect themselves.
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
A recruitment company reveals the salaries of RBS contractors
An unauthorized email sent by the recruitment company Hays to 800 RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) employees has uncovered the amounts paid to contractors working temporarily for the bank.
Even though the people who received the email are employees of the bank and therefore obliged to keep the confidentiality of the information they have found out, RBS says they are ‘extremely disappointed’ and they are collaborating with Hays to recover the exposed data. The recruitment company has already started an investigation on this breach.
After this incident, discussions on the big salaries offered to contractors by a bank that is majority-owned by the state were started.
More information on this insider data leak here.
New Spike in Hacking-related Data Loss
Mid-August seems to have been the perfect time for a fresh increase in hacking incidents that lead to sensitive data being lost or exposed. Maybe the security incidents have been powered by all the news on Anonymous and LuizSec of late, or maybe companies still don’t know what they’re facing. The truth is the simplest hacks seem to get straight to the sensitive information they store on their projects, their partners and mostly their clients.
The first such incident targeted Epson Korea, where a website hack managed to compromise the details of about 350,000 customers. The data accessed by hackers included names, user IDs, passwords and resident registration numbers. Read more
Hackers will always have their stolen data
Hackers don’t always target the largest companies. But they are everywhere, it seems, and quite prolific at breaking security protocols and exposing valuable information online. Only in the past few days, news of three such incidents have made the news.
The first such breach targeted the Colombian Police. Anonymous might be the best known hacker group at the time, but the “Colombian Hackers” have used spam bombs to access and expose personal data of employees of the National Police, also inviting the public to harass them.
BET24.com was the second victim of a breach and data loss incident triggered by hacking. Customers have been notified 19 months after the incident, although the gambling site claims they have upgraded their security earlier to prevent such incidents. The original hack accessed details such as names, addresses, email addresses, user account IDs, account passwords and encrypted customer payment card numbers. The information has been found in the possession of other individuals that the hackers, who have acquired it after the hack.
“The stolen information is so far known to have been used to access a limited number of customers’ BET24 accounts, third-party accounts and personal email accounts,” is said in a security notice. “A small number of customers have alerted us to unauthorised activity on their BET24 accounts and we have fully reimbursed them for any financial loss incurred on their accounts.”
The Tasmanian Government has been the target of the third hack, those responsible claiming to have stolen 1800 usernames, email addresses and hashed passwords. The data belonged to personnel of several state agencies including Departments of Premier and Cabinet; Treasury; Infrastructure, Energy and Resources; Health and Human Services; Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment; and Economic Development, Tourism and the Arts.
Monday Endpoint Security and DLP Roundup #1
The weekend brings news of several security breaches, some showing a trend, others just containing very real warnings. As the week starts, here’s what you might have missed over the weekend, to keep you alert and informed. Today’s roundup brings you a few employees gone rogue on corporate data, sensitive information posted online, again the ever present stolen laptop and quite a few of these mishaps happening in institutions related to health care.
A security breach that happened back in April finally surfaced and it involves South Australian DNA testing company Medvet. The mishap led to customers’ names, work and home addresses, and types of DNA testing kit ordered being exposed online and dutifully indexed by Google. Australia’s Privacy Commissioner Tim Pilgrim has already launched an investigation.
Security study – Most government employees fall for planted USB sticks
Curiosity is stronger than any sense of security or any fear of hackers and other malicious individuals, this was the conclusion of a security study run by the US Department of Homeland Security. The study proved how easily hackers and other individuals outside companies can easily go beyond firewalls and other security measures by simply planting USB sticks or computer disks in the right place.
The test tempted government employees by dropping the said USB memory sticks and computer disks in parking lots of government buildings and private contractors that work with the government, just waiting for them to take the bait. Read more
Who’s the Next Big Gaming Company to Be Hacked?
Hackers love big players in the gaming industry, it seems. After the prolonged downtime of Sony’s PlayStation Network due to subsequent hacks that exposed about 70 million players to fraud or identity theft, SEGA was the next target in the same industry segment. As a result, 1.2 million customers of the Japanese gaming company had their information stolen by the hackers, being exposed to the same risks as in the PSN breach.
SEGA stated that only Japanese players and the Japanese website were affected and that fortunately they do not store any sensitive information, such as credit card details. Yet even less details are sometimes enough to be used as a start point to get someone’s life turned upside down. 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
Loss or theft of hardware, still important cause for data breaches in health sector
Although there are measures than can be taken to prevent data breaches caused by employees and to involve the personnel more into avoiding such occurrences, there are a lot of security mishaps caused by the loss, theft or misplacing of company hardware by staffers. Laptops, hard drives, USB stick and other storage devices are being lost or stolen on a daily basis, exposing the private data of thousands of people to identity theft or fraud, and many of them occur in the health sector. Read more
