Data breaches reported from 12 medical facilities last month

A dozen medical data breaches were added to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse list last month – and that doesn’t even include Affinity Health Plan’s leaving personal information of more than 400,000 people on their digital copier when the lease was up.

• Our Lady of Peace (Louisville, KY)
  Someone lost or stole a flash drive containing personal information of nearly 25,000 of the psychiatric hospital’s patients. Some of the records are from as far back as 2002.
• St. Jude Heritage Medical Group (Orange, CA)
  Five computers storing the information of 20,000 patients were stolen during a break-in. In this case, the info included names, birth dates and Social Security numbers; some patients’ health information was also on the computers.
• The Medical Center (Bowling Green, KY)
  Someone stole a hard drive that contained the info of women who had bone density testing at the mammography suite between 1997 and 2009.
• Hutcheson Medical Center and a plastic surgery center (Chattanooga, TN)
  Thousands of patient files dating back to 1998 were sent to the Dupont Recyling Center. Information within the files included personally identifying info. Patients who underwent plastic surgery will be mortified to know their photos were also up for grabs. (This data breach actually occurred May 2009, but just made the list April 2010.)
• DRC Physical Therapy Plus (Monticello, NY)
  Thousands of patients’ records were unceremoniously dumped when the business folded. Police impounded a dump truck loaded with boxes of files and removed another 12 boxes of patient records from the bucket of a front-end loader.
• Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (Boston)
  When thieves snatched a doctor’s laptop, they also got 3,526 patients’ names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, Social Security numbers, birth dates, medical records, prescription records and –in four cases – prescription insurance account numbers.
• Brooke Army Medical Center (San Antonio, TX)
  The three-ring binder stolen from a case manager’s car contained medical and personally identifying information of 1,272 soldiers and their families.
• St. Peter’s Hospital (Albany, NY)
  A medical records clerk is accused of stealing an unknown number of patients’ information and using it to open credit card accounts.
• ManorCare Health Services (Wheaton, MD)
  Which is worse: When a neighbor’s dog craps in your yard, or when patient files from the nursing home next door repeatedly blow into your yard over a period of months? The records include extensive personal and medical information.
• St. Francis Hospital (Tulsa, OK)
  A grand jury indicted a hospital employee for using the personal information of at least 60 patients to open fraudulent credit card accounts.
• Providence Hospital (Southfield, MI)
  The hospital is missing a hard drive chock-full of patient information. Hospital officials say only 12 of the records include Social Security numbers, but won’t say how many patient records are on the hard drive.
• John Muir Physician Network (Walnut Creek, CA)
  Roughly, 5,500 perinatal patients will get the news that their information was on one of two recently stolen laptops.

Using a one to 10 scale, how’s your pain now? Would you like something for your pain?

Use the LifeLock promo code DEFENSE and save 10% off the cost of LifeLock’s identity theft protection services.

Click Here To Bookmark It

Hide Sites

LifeLock promo code “DEFENSE” gives consumers affordable ID theft protection

The LifeLock promo code helps budget conscious American consumers save money while simultaneously helping them protect themselves from becoming ID theft victims.

Statistics illustrate the importance of ID theft protection measures, and the benefit of using the LifeLock Promo code “DEFENSE” when proactively protecting ourselves from ID theft. Consumer debt decreased 13% between February 2009 and February 2010, according to a Federal Reserve report of April 10. And last year, incidences of identity theft increased 11%, according to a report from Javelin Strategy and Research.

Using the LifeLock Promo Code “DEFENSE” saves new members 10% on their annual fees, allowing them to pay only $99 for annual membership; or consumers who prefer to make monthly payments will pay only $9 a month. It’s not hard to see the savings.

It might be easy for some people to dismiss ID theft as something that happens to other people. However, no matter how proactive we are about shredding our mail, locking our mailbox and deleting suspicious emails, the truth is that our personally identifying information (PII) is held by businesses and government agencies that don’t always have the skills or conscience to safeguard it responsibly.

Ask yourself:

• Does your employer conduct national background checks on all employees?
• Do the small companies and corporations who have your PII encrypt all computer records where your PII is stored?
• Do they send you correspondence containing your Social Security number?
• Apply the latest firewalls and anti-spyware to their computers and update them routinely?
• Have they recently laid off employees who might have stolen company records?
• Are there now fewer employees covering more responsibilities with less security resources or training?

Truthfully, we often don’t know the answers to these questions, but they pose tremendous risks to our PII.

Click Here To Bookmark It

Hide Sites

How important is it that you construct a strong password? Just ask Fox and Friends Weekend co-host Dave Briggs, or former Alaskan governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Both of them have had their email accounts hacked by intruders who were able to guess their victims’ passwords.

For Briggs, it was his Hotmail account. Writing as Briggs, the attacker sent all of Briggs’ contacts an email begging that they send money via Western Union so that he might be released from Malaysia where he, ostensibly, was trapped.

For Palin, it was her Yahoo e-mail account. The self-deprecating attacker said taking over the account was easy; all he had to do was reset Palin’s password using her birth date and zip code.The security question was “How did you meet your spouse?”. Palin said publicly on several occasions that they met in high school.

How to set a secure password

• Never use a birth date, anniversary, address, child’s name, maiden name or pet’s name. All of those things are in public records or can be easily ascertained.
• The longer your password, the more secure it will be. Never use a password shorter than eight characters.
• Use a combination of numbers, upper and lower case letters and symbols. Use easily remembered phrases, such as “!H8g8rs!” for “I hate gators”.
• Use unique passwords for each account, otherwise the hacker can simultaneously gain access to all your accounts including those you use for online financial transactions.
• Never leave your passwords under your keyboard, or in your purse or wallet. Instead, keep an encrypted spreadsheet on your computer, protected—of course—with a secure password.

Click Here To Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Every year millions of tons of discarded government, business and personally owned computers end up in one of the sprawling, smoldering e-waste dumps in developing countries. Your wedding photos may be in Ghana, resting against multi-million dollar defense contracts. Your financial records may be in India, buried beneath Homeland Security white papers.

University of British Columbia journalism students visited dumps in Ghana, China and India, and, at every dump, they discovered criminal gangs doing the same thing–scavenging through the mountains of computers in search of hard drives containing personal and financial information.

Finding the data is easy and lucrative. All around the dumps in every country were markets where vendors piled their tables high with found hard drives. One of the students bought several in Ghana, where the annual per capita income is $2,500, for $35 each.

They took the hard drives to a computer scientist in the Ghanaian capital. Within minutes he displayed someone’s family photos, credit card transactions and bank records.

Another of the drives belonged to Northrop Grumman, one of America’s largest military contractors and contained worth hundreds of millions of dollars awarded by the Department of Defense, NASA, Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration.

The students’ professor, Peter Klein, a TV producer and Emmy-winning journalist, showed the hard drive and its contents to James Durie, an FBI data security expert.

Durie was shocked by the discovery, but explained that whoever was responsible for wiping the hard drive probably thought the drive was completely cleared. He then picked up a hammer and dealt several solid blows to the hard drive—a demonstration of what he called the only surefire way to clean a hard drive.

Click Here To Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I’ve seen stories of client information left completely unsecured, unprotected and easily accessible after the closing of a doctor’s office, a car dealership, a real estate agency and a fitness center.

In some cases the customer files were dumped into open trash bins, in others the files were simply left in abandoned offices or in boxes at the curb.

Now, with last week’s failure of Clear, the program that assured travelers’ hasty passage through airport security, the extensive information of 260,000 former customers is at risk. To participate in the program, travelers provided their names, addresses, Social Security numbers, birth dates, digital eye scans, fingerprints and digital photographs.

A representative for Clear and Verified Identity Pass Inc.—the company that ran the program—said customers’ information was wiped from computers at their airport kiosks.

The Transportation Safety Administration, TSA, is still holding the customer information it collected during the pilot program. Given the TSA’s track record, that’s not a comforting thought.

In 2007, the agency lost an external hard drive containing the personal and financial information of 100,000 employees. And, in 2006, the personal information of thousands of Americans mistakenly added to airline watch lists was posted on an unsecured website in 2006.

Last year, in a kettle-pot scenario, the TSA forced Clear to temporarily stop operations when a laptop containing 33,000 customers’ pre-enrollment records was lost at San Francisco International Airport.

Visit LifeLock.com to learn more about the tools and strategies they use to help protect their nearly 1.5 million members. Enroll using the LifeLock promo code DEFENSE and pay only $9 a month.

Click Here To Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The most important time to check out a company on the Better Business Bureau’s website might be when you’re shopping for an ID theft protection service. After all, whichever company you choose, you’re going to have to give them a whole lot of personal and financial information. Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of ID theft companies out there. But, you’ve come to the right place, because I’ve made your life a lot easier by doing a quick BBB check on the 12 most prominent ID theft service companies as identified by the Consumer Federation of America.

Here’s what I found: LifeLock is the only of the 12 companies to receive an A+ ranking by the Better Business Bureau. Five of the others either had no files, or had questionable business practices or consumer complaints that prevented their receiving accreditation.

LifeLock’s BBB report details reveal they’ve had 41 customer complaints in the last 36 months, and they’ve all be resolved to the customers’ satisfaction. LifeLock currently has nearly 1.5 million members, so even if all 41 complaints occurred this year, that would be one complaint out of every 36,500 members.

If you’d like to know more about LifeLock and their services, visit LifeLock.com. If you decide to enroll, use the LifeLock promotion code DEFENSE, and you can get the BBB’s highest ranking ID theft service for only $9 a month, plus receive 30 days of free service.

At the end of the 30-day free period, your credit card will automatically be billed $9 each month, unless you decide to cancel during the 30-day period. You can cancel anytime, though, without penalty by calling 1-800-LIFELOCK. OFfer is for new LifeLock members only.

Click Here To Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Watch for the new yellow bracelets that say “LAID OFF NEED YOUR NAME, SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER, DATE OF BIRTH.”

Stephanie R. Aucoin joined the ranks of millions of other unemployed Americans last September when she was fired from her job at an accounting firm last September. But, with the help of friends, by April, she was selling thousands of yellow bracelets imprinted with the words “LAID OFF NEED A JOB.”

After her arrest by Sarasota police, maybe she needs new bracelets that say “ARRESTED NEED BAIL MONEY.”

Robert Clarke, a former co-worker, helped Aucoin with start-up money by letting her use his personal information to open a credit card account and list herself as an authorized user.

But, according to Clarke, Aucoin opened three accounts in his name and charged almost $42,000. Clarke called in the cops when he learned of the third new card when he attempted to open a new account at a furniture store but was denied because of his lousy credit.

Police said the third card account was opened with Clarke’s information, but sent only to Aucoin’s address. The card carried a balance of $25,833.

Clarke said he learned of the first two cards before Aucoin was fired. When he confronted her she denied having opened the accounts, but paid off the $16,100 balance.

LifeLock, the identity theft service chosen by nearly 1.5 million Americans, can help protect your identity. Visit LifeLock.com to learn more. Enroll using the LifeLock promotion code DEFENSE for the lowest price available—only $9 a month AND 30 days of free service.

At the end of the free 30-day period, your card will automatically be billed $9, unless you cancel during the 30-day period. You can cancel at any time without penalty by calling i-800-LIFELOCK. This offer is for new LifeLock members only.

Click Here To Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Imagine you receive a collections notice from a hospital 1,000 miles away … in a city you’ve never visited … for a surgery you’ve never had … for a health problem you don’t have … and the notice says you owe more money than your house is worth.

You have to take immediate action, but be warned: Whoever had the surgery might be recovering better than you will.

Start with the financial impact.

Step 1. Place a fraud alert on your credit reports, and review your credit reports.
Step 2. Close your credit card accounts and open new ones with new PINs and passwords. Talk to the fraud department with each company.
Step 3. File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and print copies of your FTC ID Theft Complaint Form.
Step 4. File a report with your local law enforcement. Ask them to incorporate the FTC Complaint Form.

Correcting errors in your medical records will be harder, and might be impossible. Worse still, misinformation in your file might be life threatening. The same HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) Act intended to protect your medical privacy might work against you because once you indicate that someone else’s medical information is in your file, his or her privacy must also be protected.

Also, any medical providers who didn’t put the erroneous information in your records are not obligated to correct it, nor are insurance companies.

The information in your record might have been sent to a laboratory, a surgeon, a medical specialist, a medical imaging center, an insurance company, a hospital, an anesthesiologist, a home health provider, a physical therapist and a pharmacy.

Patients with primary care doctors with whom they have a good relationship might find them to be their best ally because all medical information should be copied to their offices.

You’re definitely going to need an ally.

Visit LifeLock.com to learn more about the comprehensive services they’re providing to nearly 1.5 million members. Enroll using the LifeLock promotion code DEFENSE and pay only $9 a month.

Click Here To Bookmark It

Hide Sites

You’ve been waiting for it all year: surreptitiously checking airfare at work, grilling friends about the best hotels and restaurants or cruising cruise schedules.

Obviously you’ve given a lot of thought to your vacation, but did you ever think someone could steal your identity while you travel?

We got ya covered with a five-minute solution.

First of all, consider getting LifeLock. There are a dozen good reasons to enroll, but for the vacation or business traveler, WalletLock is reason enough. WalletLock help protect LifeLock members by helping to replace financial and government-issued document if—God forbid—their wallets are lost or stolen.

That long list includes credit cards, bankcards, checks, driver’s licenses, Social Security cards, birth certificates and passports. You can call one of LifeLock’s certified Identity Theft Risk Specialists 24/7 and they’ll help you get your documents replaced before identity thieves have a chance to use them.

Next, clean out your wallet and you won’t have to worry about replacing half that stuff.

• Take out your Social Security card, checks, and birth certificate. Lock all of it up in a safe or lockbox at home.
• Carry only one credit card.
• Put your mail on “postal hold” instead of “vacation hold” so not even your mail carrier knows how long you’ll be gone.
• Stop your newspaper and water deliveries.
• Don’t take bills with you to catch up on bookkeeping.
• Use the hotel safe to lock up your passport, laptop, PDA and anything else that might identify you. Make user your digital data is encrypted.

Visit LifeLock.com to learn more about WalletLock. Use the LifeLock promotion code DEFENSE and you’ll get 30 days of free coverage and pay only $9 a month for the rest of the year.

At the end of the 30-day free period, your card will be automatically billed $9 monthly unless you cancel within that first 30-day period. You can cancel anytime without penalty by calling 1-800-LIFELOCK. This offer is for new LifeLock members only.

Click Here To Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Imagine walking confidently onto a car lot to buy a car for your college-age son. You make an enviable salary, and have always paid your bills on time. Now imagine being turned down for the purchase because of your awful credit.

That’s what happened to Brazoria County District Attorney Jeri Yenne. The dealer explained the problem arose because she defaulted on the $17,000 loans for the two cars she bought in 2008.

But Yenne didn’t buy the two cars, and certainly didn’t default on any loans; someone in the Milwaukee area bought the cars and financed them using her Social Security number and the names Jo Perkins and Jo Harris.

It’s not likely Yenne will ever learn how the identity theft occurred, but she does know how her credit was ruined: “I had not taken the time to check my credit,” she said. “Everybody should be encouraged to check their credit.”

But, losing a pristine credit record is only a part of the picture. A stolen Social Security number can lead to criminal identity theft, where an arrested criminal uses the ID theft victim’s information and the victim ends up with a criminal record.

If a stolen Social Security number is used to obtain employment, the IRS may demand unpaid taxes or fines based on earned income associated with the stolen SSN.

The thief may claim retirement benefits, making it impossible for the victim to receive Social Security benefits at retirement age.

One of the first services LifeLock provides their nearly 1.5 million members is a free credit report. Visit LifeLock.com to find out more about their other services including fraud alerts, WalletLock™, eRecon™ and TrueAddress™.

Enroll using the LifeLock promotion code DEFENSE to get the lowest price available.

Click Here To Bookmark It

Hide Sites