Archive for February, 2010
Rip of the Week: DHS Loses Over 1,000 Computers in One Fiscal Year
It’s hard to beat a Rip of the Week like this one. The Independence Institute reports that the Department of Homeland Security “continues to lose hundreds of computers per year.” According to John Caldera, the president of the Independence Institute, which investigated for the report, “You really have to look at these inventories, and go [...]
Tip of the Week: Walk a Fired Employee Straight to the Door
Nobody likes having to fire people. It can be an ugly business. Sometimes it must happen, however. And when it does, it’s important for your business to have a policy in place for how you handle the termination when it comes to leaving the premises.
That is, do you notify an employee that he is being [...]
Rip of the Week: 969 SSNs Breached by the Social Security Administration Itself
Thanks to kirniki over at DataLoss DB for a tip-off about a rather ironic breach. In this case, the Social Security Numbers of 969 people were breached by the Social Security Administration itself when an employee lost a presumably-unencrypted “computer disc” while traveling to Queens from the Bronx back in October.
The Queens Chronicle reports that [...]
Tip of the Week: Control Employee Websurfing ASAP
This weeks’ Tip is a bit of a misnomer. Of course most businesses want to control employee websurfing, for a number of reasons, only beginning with productivity.
Often the question is “how?”
Yet, as today’s Tip highlights, many businesses just don’t get around to putting any controls in place at all.
security curmudgeon over at DataLossDB gives a [...]
Rip of the Week: AvMed Health Plans Breaches 208,000 Customers and Dependents
This week’s Rip involves yet another healthcare player. We are not actually targeting medical ID theft cases lately–they just seem to be falling from the sky even more frequently than usual.
The Gainesville Sun reports (thanks to kirniki at DataLoss DB for the tip) that 208,000 current and former subscribers of AvMed Health Plans are at [...]
Tip of the Week: Build a Disaster Recovery Plan, Part Four
We’re still thinking about disasters, and that’s a good thing. Most people, and even most businesses, don’t really think about them until they happen, other than perhaps to buy some insurance (a great start).
We’ve looked so far at data backup, the automation thereof, and the recoverability that’s essential. This week, consider a quick, broader look [...]
Rip of the Week: Hospital Apologizes for Medical Data Breach
We’ll combine a couple of medical data thefts for this week’s Rip of the Week.
First, the San Francisco Business Times reports that UC San Francisco reported a laptop theft that occurred on our about November 30, breaching 4,400 patients of the UCSF School of Medicine. The data included names, medical record numbers, age and clinical [...]
Tip of the Week: Build a Disaster Recovery Plan, Part Three
Our theme continues with the same focus on data backup, particularly since data loss is far and away the likeliest disaster each of us will face, as hard drive crashes, laptop thefts, and spilled coffee on the keyboard are very common.
This week, we consider the question, “If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody [...]
Entries (RSS)