Total Bankruptcy Newsroom
Data Breach Update ~ May 21, 2008
An e-mail accidentally sent to about 680 students of Ohio State University’s Agricultural Technical Institute contained the personal information of 192 faculty and staff members, according to a report by the Columbus Dispatch. The e-mail was sent out on April 29 and included a spreadsheet listing the names, positions, salaries and Social Security number of university employees who worked during 2001-02 and 2003-04. The university employee who sent the e-mail did not realize that the spreadsheet containing personal data was attached. There have been no reported cases of identity theft as a result of the incident and students were asked to delete the e-mail. Those who were affected in the data breach were offered free credit protection services for one year.
Investigative reporters from WTNH News Channel 8 searched a garbage dumpster in West Haven, Connecticut and found Social Security numbers, bank account numbers and canceled checks discarded by, of all places, a security company. Northeast Security, a subcontractor for Safe Home Security, recently moved out of a storefront in West Haven and apparently left the personal information of their customers behind. The news team contacted the state's attorney office and it also sent someone to investigate the dumpster documents. Northeast Security told Channel 8 that they could not get all of their customer files after being locked out of the office due to a dispute with the landlord. The company claims that the records that were lost are not those of current customers.
Approximately 1,000 people in the Atlanta area are being contacted by the FBI because they may have been victims of identity theft. WSB News Radio reported that an employee of International Visa Service in Sandy Springs, Georgia was arrested and charged with stealing the personal information of people who had applied for passports. Warren Fowler is charged with stealing the personal data and sending it to his brother, Alvin Fowler, in Miami. Investigators say that the identities were then sold on the black market for up to $7,000 each.
It has been discovered that some patients of the New Beginnings Children's Therapy clinic in Brownsville, Texas may be at risk of identity theft. The medical information of more than two dozen children from Rio Grande Valley in Texas was posted on the Internet for two years and was available to anyone who used Google to search for it. The spreadsheet contained the full names, phone numbers and insurance status of approximately 25 children. This data breach may be a violation of federal privacy protections in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, according to a report by The Monitor. Although the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services can impose fines of up to $25,000 on providers who violate privacy rules, it rarely does so unless the health care provider has willfully neglected the law or refused to correct the problem. Hopefully bankruptcy will not be the result of these fines.
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