Have been traveling this week and next week, so updates to this site and pogowasright.org will be slim to non-existent, but I will get the sites caught up when I can.
I will not be available via Jabber until after Aug. 26th and email will be spotty, too.
This concept of “vacation” seems so alien by now….
Vera Bergengruen reports:
A veterans organization is suing the Pentagon for exposing private details about troops’ military service on “a truly massive scale” due to lax security on one of its websites.
[…]
The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act website, which according to the Pentagon receives more than 2.3 billion searches a year, is mean to be used (sic) by authorized institutions like banks to confirm the active duty status that entitles service members to certain protections.
Instead, the information is available to con artists and scammers who can use it to impersonate government or other officials and gain veterans’ trust by discussing details of their service that only authorized organizations would have.
Read more on Miami Herald.
From their web site:
On June 7, 2017, Surgical Dermatology Group in Birmingham, Alabama (“SDG”) received notice from its cloud hosting and server management provider, TekLinks, Inc., of a security breach at its Birmingham facility that hosts our server. We immediately initiated an investigation and learned that external hackers had gained access to our server possibly as far back as March 23, 2017. TekLinks has assured us that all unauthorized access was terminated on May 1, 2017 and that monitoring by TekLinks from April 22, 2017 through May 1, 2017 showed no further malicious activity during that time period. SDG has worked with the assistance of third-party forensic investigators to determine the full nature and scope of the security incident and to confirm the security of its servers and the integrity of its patient information. We are taking additional steps to ensure the privacy and security of its patients’ information including contacting the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Information which may have been accessed includes: patient’s name, address, telephone number, email address, home and work telephone numbers, cell phone number, Social Security number, medical record number, patient ID, physician name, health plan/insurance number, and charges and payments from services performed. No driver’s license, credit card or other financial information was stored in any files on the server.
While there is no current evidence of any actual or attempted misuse of the information as a result of this incident, we are providing notice of the incident in light of the sensitivity of the information. Individuals whose information may have been affected will receive a letter informing them of this incident, with instructions on steps they can take to receive free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services for a year. Individuals may call a toll-free help line for additional information: 1-888-451-6562. Any updates will be posted here.
Surgical Dermatology Group takes very seriously its responsibility to protect your information and deeply regrets this unfortunate incident. We express our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience this has caused our patients.
A public notice appeared on al.com on August 6.
Dan Fumano reports:
Sensitive patient data supplied to a Vancouver cannabis dispensary has been either mishandled or — according to the shop’s owner — stolen, a situation again highlighting the cloud of confusion over the regulation of retail pot.
[…]
A tipster recently contacted Postmedia to say he’d found a computer memory card in a Vancouver alley, containing more than 1,000 photos of people taken inside a west-side dispensary, as well as digital copies of private medical documents. Postmedia has reviewed the contents of the memory card to confirm its contents, but is not identifying the dispensary, because it was not immediately possible to confirm how the disk was obtained. The tipster who provided the disk said he was unsure if it ended up in the alley due to negligence or “some criminal act that led to the memory card being stolen or otherwise taken from the dispensary.”
Read more on The Vancouver Sun.
Vicky Gayle reports:
A midwifery assistant who described herself as nosy snooped into 29 people’s medical records including a man who had taken an overdose and parents of her children’s friends.
Brioney Woolfe was reported to the head of midwifery at Colchester General Hospital when someone discovered their medical records had been shared with her ex-partner.
An investigation then uncovered a series of data protection breaches during December 2014 and May 2016.
Read more on Daily Gazette. It doesn’t matter what country we’re talking about, it seems: insider wrongdoing breaches are hard to detect in a timely fashion.