Remember how Heartland Payment Systems took a lot of heat for announcing their breach at a time that coincided with President Obama’s inauguration? Since then, a lot of entities have been bashed a bit over the timing of their breach disclosures. As someone who tracks breaches, it became almost a given that I would find a number of disclosures on Friday afternoons, when they might be more likely to be missed by people heading out for the weekend. But a press release about breach disclosure on a Sunday? Here’s a press release I just saw:
Southern California Medical-Legal Consultants, Inc. (SCMLC) announced that electronic files containing names and social security numbers of approximately 300,000 individuals who have applied for California workers’ compensation benefits had been exposed to unauthorized access. SCMLC is a California company that represents medical providers in the recovery of billing from workers’ compensation insurance carriers.
The company was notified of the possible breach by a data security firm that discovered some of the files using a sophisticated, automated search of Google indexes. According to SCMLC, the information was stored on a computer that was intended for internal purposes only, and not linked to or accessible from any of the company’s public web pages. The data security firm has assured SCMLC that they have not and will not distribute any of the information they accessed and that their purpose in accessing the files was the prevention of identity theft.
“We take data security and privacy very seriously,” said Joel Hecht, President of SCMLC. “Unfortunately, our internal security policies and procedures were not followed. We were notified, we took immediate steps to remediate the situation and we are taking long-term measures to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. While we believe that the risk of identity theft is minimal, SCMLC is doing everything required under the law with respect to notification of anyone who could be affected by this incident.”
For inquiries, contact [email protected] or call 562-493-0851.
I’ve emailed the firm to try to get additional details. A copy of the press release was prominently linked to from their web site home page yesterday.
Sometimes, entities are damned if they do, damned if they don’t disclose as soon as they’ve got their ducks in a row. Before critics pile on, maybe we need to find out more.