Walgreens fined 1.44M dollars for pharmacist data breach
About six months after a Walgreens pharmacist was sentenced to 25 months in prison for patient identity theft, the large pharmacy chain is having more patient privacy issues. The Indianapolis Star reports that Walgreens pharmacist Audra Peterson allegedly inappropriately accessed Abigail Hinchy’s prescription data and exposed it to her husband, Davion Peterson. As a result of this breach, a six-person Marion County, Ind. jury awarded a woman $1.44 million on Friday to conclude a four-day trial.
Staff data leaks out of the Securities and Exchange Commission
A serious data breach at the Securities and Exchange Commission transferred personal data about current and former employees into the computer system of another federal agency, a letter sent by the SEC to staff reveals. The July 8 letter, obtained by The Hill, is from Thomas Bayer, the SEC’s chief information officer and senior agency official on privacy. It warned that personal employee data had been discovered on the networks of another, unnamed federal agency.
Disney fan steals $50k for 15 park trips
Corporate officials of Eddie Merlot’s, whose manager was charged July 2 with stealing customers’ identities, have pledged to “rectify the issue with any affected patron.” In a prepared statement issued last week, Bruce Kraus, director of operations for Eddie Merlot’s restaurants, said the chain is going “above and beyond” to resolve the matter with any customers who were affected by the alleged 7-month-long scam in Lincolnshire.
Inspector at Fort Campbell stole IDs, including soldier's
NASHVILLE, Tennessee — A former Fort Campbell inspector whose job was to investigate misconduct was charged Wednesday with stealing the identities of Army personnel, including a soldier killed in combat, in a scheme to obtain bank loans, federal authorities said. A federal grand jury indictment claims that James Robert Jones, 42, of Woodlawn, Tennessee, used his position as an assistant inspector general at the Army post along the Kentucky-Tennessee line to obtain personal information of active-duty Army officers, some of whom were deployed to Afghanistan.
IRS web exposure reveals tens of thousands of SSNs
Public.Resource.Org has discovered that the Internal Revenue Service has posted the Social Security Numbers of tens of thousands of Americans on government web sites. The database in question contains the filings of Section 527 political organizations such as campaign committees. This Section 527 database is an essential tool used by journalists, watchdog groups, congressional staffers, and citizens.
Employees stole patients’ identities in tax fraud schemes
Federal authorities say employees at James A. Haley VA Medical Center and Tampa General Hospital stole patients’ identities in tax fraud schemes. Haley employee David F. Lewis is accused of taking the names and Social Security numbers of dozens of hospital patients and selling the information to people who used it to file fraudulent tax returns and get refunds, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Tampa said Wednesday.
US charges Chinese wind company with stealing trade secret
Chinese wind turbine maker Sinovel Wind Group Co and two of its employees were charged with stealing trade secrets from US-based AMSC by the Department of Justice on Thursday. A federal grand jury in the Western District of Wisconsin returned an indictment leveling theft charges on Sinovel, two of its employees and a former employee of AMSC, a Devens, Massachusetts-based company that provided wind turbine design, engineering services and power electronics and controls to Sinovel. Authorities said the theft allegedly cost AMSC $862 million.
Stolen laptop endangers thousands' identities
The information, which includes Social Security and drivers license numbers, was on a King County sheriff's office computer that was stolen from a detective. The laptop and a personal hard drive were full of case files, including personal information about thousands of crime victims, suspects, witnesses and even police officers. The laptop was stolen last March from the backseat of a detective's undercover pickup truck. To say Christie Diemond was outraged when she got a letter in the mail last Friday would be beyond an understatement.
LA court employee sentenced in document leak case
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A former federal court employee in Los Angeles has been sentenced to six months in prison for accessing and leaking confidential information to tip off suspected criminals, including Armenian Power gang members. Federal prosecutor Martin Estrada says Nune Gevorkyan also received three years of probation at sentencing on Wednesday. Her husband, Oganes Koshkaryan, was sentenced to 57 months in prison. The pair pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiracy and other charges.
Pentagon blocks workers’ Web access after security breach
Kristina Wong reports: «News and social media websites have been blocked on some Pentagon workstations Friday to prevent employees and contractors from accessing classified information that was leaked Thursday about a federal program that gathers Internet users’ personal data from the computer servers of Web service providers». U.S. Cyber Command recommended the blocking, which began about 11:30 a.m. Friday, a Defense Department source said.
