District slow to respond to breach

Melissa Nix reports: A document with the Social Security numbers of more than 500 Elk Grove Unified School District employees was lost by a district employee more than a month ago, according to Mary Deutsch, president of the California School Employee Association local in Elk Grove. Deutsch said the district was slow in responding...

Western Oklahoma State College alerts library users of data breach

The Associated Press is reporting that about 1,500 users of the college’s library may have had their Social Security numbers and other personal information exposed because of a computer breach that occurred on November 11, but wasn’t discovered until February 18. No details of the breach have been provided yet. (Thanks to Wilma of...

T-Mobile case update: indicted men were not employees

As an update to the story here: A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office informs me that the 5 men who were indicted today were not employees of T-Mobile. They allegedly accessed and acquired the customer data via an authorization code that they obtained from the owner of a T-Mobile store. The owner of...

T-mobile customer data used in fraud; 5 indicted

A number of Michigan news sources such as the Detroit News are reporting that an indictment has been unsealed against five Detroit men who used T-Mobile USA records to find customers with good credit. They then allegedly opened accounts with HSBC to obtain credit that they used to purchase computers and other electronics from...

Bits ‘n Pieces

In the criminal justice system: As a follow-up to a case previously reported, former Navy petty officer, Cora Dixon, pleaded guilty and accepted a 15-year prison sentence for helping run an identity theft ring. She was accused of using her access to direct deposits at the Fort Worth Reserve Joint Base to take banking...

UK: Police probing wide-scale bank card cloning claims

Justin Dunn reports that Wirral police are investigating possible large-scale cloning of credit and debit cards which have all been used at the same business in Wallasey. Most of the suspect transactions are believed to have been attempted in India and Canada, with the amounts ranging between £300 and £3,000. It is believed that...

Pointer: Heartland’s Lonely Quest For Reform

Rebecca Sausner has an article in Bank Technology News, in which Avivah Litan of Gartner is quoted as saying, “Visa’s next.” But the more interesting question, of course, is what’s next? …. Visa is sticking to its guns with the PCI standards. “…While no guarantee, maintaining compliance with the PCI DSS remains the best...

Industry coalition launches health IT security plan

A coalition of more than 50 healthcare companies and technology vendors on Monday unveiled a common security framework designed to be a benchmark for safeguarding the privacy of electronic medical records. McKesson is participating in the industry-led coalition, known as the Health Information Trust Alliance, which also includes health providers, insurers, pharmacies, biotech...