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
British authorities experienced 1,035 data loss incidents
Only 55 of the data loss breaches have actually been reported
If you can’t stop data breaches, at least cover them up! This seems to be the data security code British authorities go by. Too bad for them there is something called Freedom of Information Act requests… A new report issued by privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch showed that councils across the UK experienced over a thousand data loss cases over a three year period – August 2008 to August 2011.
To get the information, the group sent 433 FOIs to local authorities and councils across the Great Britain and showed s shocking discrepancy between the reported 50 something incidents and the harsh reality. Not only did BBW uncover the data mishandling cases, they also requested information on what happened to the employees of said councils – if they had been disciplined, fired or prosecuted over the data breaches -, and inquired about the council’s response to each incident. Read more
The theft of laptops doesn’t stop, organizations don’t learn their lesson
A whole lot was written on loss/theft of hardware (laptops, USB sticks, external hard drives, etc.) and we had thought that organizations would learn their lesson and encrypt sensitive data on such supports. Apparently, things aren’t quite like that and two recent incidents come to prove it.
A resident student at Vancouver Coastal Health lost a laptop and a USB stick (there is a high probability that the hardware was stolen) at the Toronto Airport. The information stored on the drives was password protected but it wasn’t encrypted.
A Vancouver Coastal Health official calls the incident ‘unfortunate’ and says that ‘This is the way physicians and other health care workers need to do their job. They need to use these devices.’ He admits that many professionals use laptops and that the agency has some issues handling mobile technologies.
Another mishap took place in the United Kingdom and the theft of a laptop that stored personal information of 100 young people who participated in inclusion programs. This laptop was in the house of a contractor of the Newcastle Youth Offending Team organization. The ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) has established a fine for this organization for not encrypting the data. According to Sally-Anne Poole ‘Encryption is a basic procedure and an inexpensive way to ensure that information is kept secure.’ She underlines the fact that organizations working with contractors must make sure that the latter ones align to their security policies.
It’s so simple and cheap to track the use of portable devices and encrypt sensitive data stored on them, that we really ask ourselves why don’t organizations do it?
Let’s hope that at least legal constraints will force private data handlers to implement solutions and politics to maintain their data safe and secure.
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
CoSoSys Releases Endpoint Protector 4 – New Device Control Hardware and Virtual Appliance
Endpoint security developer CoSoSys has released a new version of their data loss prevention, device control and endpoint security solution for Windows and Mac OS, Endpoint Protector. Offering enhanced protection, increased effectiveness and the fastest implementation time in its segment, the out-of-the-box Hardware and Virtual Appliance is now available for small, medium and large companies and organizations.
Coming with a long list of new features targeting better security, reliability, ease of use and better adapting to company structures and organization charts, Endpoint Protector 4 is designed to protect networks ranging from 20 computers (endpoints) to more than 5.000 endpoints.
Some of the top benefits of this latest Endpoint Protector solution are:
- Seamless integration in business processes
- Saving time and money when the solution is installed
- Increased security through enhanced protection
- Reducing allotted resources of the security staff
- Optimum security through enhanced stability
- Enhanced protection through complex, adaptable end efficient security
- Reliable security through enhanced monitoring and policy control
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
More data breaches caused by improper use of flash drives and laptops
The beginning of August has been extremely rich in data breaches caused by stolen or misplaced flash drives, hard drives and laptops, most of them unencrypted, as it almost always happens. Some of them are quite recent, in other cases it has taken over 5 months for those in question to let the affected parties know about the incidents.
The first breach in chronological order affected Lewisham Homes Limited and Wandle Housing Association Ltd and it involved a contractor’s flash drive that got lost in a pub. Apparently, mixing drinking and having fun with sensitive information does not lead to a tasty cocktail, it leads to details of over 26,000 tenants being lost. The silver lining of the incident is that only 800 people should worry about bank details. Read more
June, the month with the most data breaches of 2011 so far
According to datalossdb.org, a site belonging to the Open Security Foundation, that publishes the latest news regarding data loss and data breaches, the month of 2011 with the largest number of such incidents was June, when 90 cases were recorded.
The causes of these incidents were very diverse: from the ever-present theft of computers, laptops or hard drives and other portable devices, to fraud, hacking attacks, personal information disclosed on websites, viruses, documents thrown in the dustbin, etc.
The most significant breach from June was the one produced at Sony Pictures, when the LulzSec hackers have accessed one million records of Sony clients in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Employee goes home with 9,000 records of coworkers
An employee of the California Department of Health thought it would be a great idea to access and copy to a portable drive personal information belonging to 9,000 former and current state employees. The security breach discovered within the department involved names, dates of birth, and addresses stored in compensation records of the affected parties.
The California Department of Health is currently running an investigation on the scope and extent of the breach. In the mean time, the person responsible for the unauthorized removal of personal records from the institution is on administrative leave, answering all the questions needed to understand the incident. Read more
