Happy New Year to all! My hope would be for a 2010 that’s way better than 2009 with respect to the flood of data breaches. We shall see. I cannot say I’m truly optimistic.

This weeks’ Rip of the Week concerns two devices stolen from the health department in Detroit. Thanks go to Redemtech for the alert. Freep.com reports that, first, a flash drive containing a trove of data from birth certificates was stolen from the car of an employee. The information was not encrypted. Then, a thief broke into the Herman Kiefer Health Complex and stole an unencrypted desktop computer containing Medicare and Medicaid flu vaccine billing information.

In all, an estimated 10,000 people have been breached, with data including Social Security Numbers and birth dates. They have been offered one year of free credit monitoring, the standard stop-gap.

The drum beat rolls on…