Laptop Computer Security

Tag archive for ‘PII’

HIMSS Report Reveals False Sense of Security for Patient Data

A report from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) reveals some interesting new findings about the state of data security in the healthcare sector and, as most would agree, healthcare-related data is among the most sensitive of all. Healthcare IT News has a very helpful summary article about the report, and a blog [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Tip of the Week: Laptops and Mobiles Are 16% More Damaging in Breach

Yet another important finding of the “2009 Annual Study: Cost of a Data Breach” by the Ponemon Institute, sponsored by PGP, concerns the acute damage caused by lost or stolen laptops and other mobile data-bearing devices, as compared with other breach vectors.
On page 23 of the report, we find the highlighted finding:
Thirty-six percent of all [...]

Rip of the Week: 3.3 Million Student Loan Borrowers Breached

If you are a college student, or were a college student, and you had a student loan, it’s time to worry. Officials of St. Paul-based Educational Credit Management Corp. revealed that an unencrypted portable device was stolen during the weekend of March 20-21. The Wall Street Journal reports, and thanks to kirniki on DLDB for [...]