Laptop Computer Security

Archive for April, 2010

5,418 Patients Breached by Medical Center

This week’s theft (rip) involves yet another unencrypted external hard drive. kirniki gives the tip-off to an article at Info Tech that gives the details. The Medical Center at Bowling Green discovered the theft on April 1.
Apparently, the stolen hard drive contained patient names, dates of birth, medical record numbers, addresses, and physician names, and [...]

Rip of the Week: More Than 3,526 Patients Breached by Doctor Traveling in South Korea

Newswise carries a press release from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary stating that more than 3,526 patients were affected by a data breach on February 19, 2010. Dr. Robert Levine, a neurologist with a focus on tinnitus (ringing in the ears), was traveling in South Korea when his laptop was stolen.
On that laptop was [...]

Tip of the Week: Have a Mental Checklist Procedure When You Travel

One of the most common places to experience a laptop theft or loss is at the airport. In fact, a recent Ponemon Institute study (see blog posts here and here) have quantified that very thing, noting that about 12,000 laptops per week are lost or stolen in US airports alone.
We are all creatures of habit, [...]

UPDATE: Breached Data of 3.3 Million Student Loan Borrowers Found…In Police Evidence Room

Here’s an update to a recent Rip of the Week concerning 3.3 million breached records of federal student loan recipients. It turns out that the data, which existed on “CDs and floppy discs,” was recovered shortly after the theft and was only recently discovered in a police evidence room, and connected to the case.
WCCO reports, [...]

Rip of the Week: 447,549 MORE People Breached by BlueCross BlueShield Incident

Things continue to get worse for a major theft from BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. Back on October 2, 2009, 57 computer hard drives were stolen from an office at the state’s largest health insurer. The breach incident page at DataLossDB is a good clearinghouse for information on the theft. The hard drives contained a large [...]

Tip of the Week: Laptop Thieves Hate Mud

For this week’s Tip of the Week I’ll delve back into some more “personal security” practices or, that is, specific ways to keep your mobile devices safe on the go. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s crucial to “break the Twenty Second Window.” It’s worth repeatedly emphasizing the Twenty Second Window.
This term refers to the twenty [...]

Nobody Tells the Feds

An interesting read over at Dark Reading highlights the fact that when it comes to data breaches, we really don’t know the half of it. Kelly Jackson Higgins reports that most organizations hit by data breaches that do not require public disclosure do not call law enforcement. The reasons vary but, far and away, the [...]

Rip of the Week: Medical Data of 5,306,000 Individuals Breached Since 2008

As the healthcare industry moves toward electronic medical records (EMRs), fear about their security continues to be fed by statistics such as these, reported by InformationWeek. Thanks to Redemtech for the tip. In a good synopsis, Nicole Lewis reports on a new study from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), which revealed that [...]