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Encryption

Unencrypted hospital laptop exposes 2k patient records

Greg Masters May 23, 2012

An employee of the Boston Children's Hospital lost a laptop holding patient information.

PCI releases help for retailers using mobile to take sales

Dan Kaplan May 16, 2012

The body that manages debit and credit card security standards on Wednesday released best practices for retailers wishing to accept payments via mobile devices.

Shutting access to passwords

David Pfeiffer, marketing director, mSeven Software April 02, 2012

Imagine a mobile device falling into the wrong hands - resulting in the draining of bank accounts co-opting of identities.

Laptop with patient data stolen from Howard University Hospital contractor

Greg Masters March 29, 2012

Letters have gone out to patients of Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., after their personal information was exposed when a laptop was stolen from the car of a contractor.

Secure access, authorization among areas still lacking at IRS

Dan Kaplan March 19, 2012

A favorite whipping boy of the Government Accountability Office, the Internal Revenue Service has yet to clean up its security act, though improvements continue, according to a new audit.

Lawsuits in Sutter Health breach to be rolled into one

Greg Masters March 08, 2012

Following the theft of a computer at Sutter Health in October that put the personal information of more than 4.2 million patients at risk, 11 class-action lawsuits were filed against the Sacramento, Calif.-based nonprofit.

Standards body to certify PCI end-user experts

Dan Kaplan February 09, 2012

The PCI Security Standards Council is planning to soon launch a program where one can certify their expertise in preparing their organizations for PCI assessments.

FTC settles with rewards company over security infractions

Dan Kaplan January 09, 2012

Upromise, which helps students save for college, failed to live up to its oath to protect users' security and privacy, and offer encryption.

Encryption bans in the name of fighting terrorism hurt security

Rainer Enders, CTO of Americas, NCP Engineering December 28, 2011

Governments need to fight terrorism in ways other than prohibiting the encryption of networks, a technology that is essential to locking down business' private communication.

Getting serious about health care security

Peter Spier, manager of professional services, Fortrex Technologies December 06, 2011

Health care providers and their patients both have parts to play in the high-stakes game of protecting sensitive medical information, especially as technology becomes easier to implement and enforcement of regulations intensifies.

Encryption

Peter Stephenson December 01, 2011

We would be hard-pressed to find many product categories in the security space that did not have some encryption component associated with them.

Podcast: Fixing the SSL certificate chain

Dan Kaplan November 30, 2011

In this podcast, Access' Gustaf Bjorksten discusses why the SSL system has failed and what is necessary to improve its existing design and implementation. He helped author a call-to-action paper, and believes the future trust and privacy of the internet relies on finding a solution.

Sutter Health loses computer, data on 4.2 million

Dan Kaplan November 16, 2011

Northern California-based Sutter Health is the second major health care organization to fall victim to a major breach of unencrypted data.

GAO again slams IRS over security weaknesses

November 14, 2011

Despite repeated warnings from the GAO, the IRS has not done much to improve its security posture, and the tax collector was chastised in yet another federal audit.

Google enables search encryption by default

Dan Kaplan October 19, 2011

Google has turned on encrypted search by default. The tech giant announced in a blog post Tuesday that users, over the next few weeks, will be automatically directed to https://www.google.com when they sign into their accounts. The secure channel will help protect search terms and results pages from being intercepted by a third party. As a result, websites won't have access to each individual search query that drives traffic to their site, but they still will be able to view a list of the top 1,000 queries via Google Webmaster Tools. Users wanting to send their individual search entry to advertisers, so they can improve their campaigns, can opt to still do so by clicking on an ad appearing on the search results page.

Defense Department facing $4.9B lawsuit over breach

Angela Moscaritolo October 17, 2011

A suit contends that the defendants failed to properly encrypt data, then "intentionally, willfully and recklessly" allowed an untrained individual to access the information.

Delaware pediatric health facility loses data on 1.6 million

Angela Moscaritolo October 11, 2011

Three unencrypted backup tapes containing the personal information of more than a million and a half individuals have gone missing from Nemours, a children's health system in Wilmington, Del.

Amazon Kindle tablet routes web traffic to cloud first

Darren Pauli, SC Australia/New Zealand edition October 03, 2011

Amazon's Silk browser, used on the newly announced the Kindle Fire tablet, has raised privacy concerns because it directs all traffic through its EC2 cloud service.

It's all about the data

Peter Stephenson October 03, 2011

If we didn't care about who sees, damages or alters our data, we wouldn't need to waste millions of dollars on the tools of our trade, says Peter Stephenson, technology editor.

Lost backup tapes affect 4.9 million current, former military

Dan Kaplan September 29, 2011

One of the largest breaches of the year has struck a military health benefits firm and a major defense contractor, and the data wasn't encrypted because a compliant solution wasn't available.

Losing medical data

David Harley, ESET senior research fellow • September 26, 2011

Apparently, the loss of sensitive medical data is not purely an English disease.

SCADA system safeguards

September 01, 2011

Stuxnet demonstrated that even isolated physical networks could be hacked.

Smartphones? There's malware for that, too.

Troy Gill, security analyst, AppRiver July 07, 2011

Mobile devices, while unique, pose security challenges not unlike traditional PCs, and organizations can apply some basic tips to stay ahead of the threats.

New "indestructible" botnet comprised of 4.5 million PCs

Angela Moscaritolo July 01, 2011

A new botnet made up of more than 4.5 million infected computers is "practically indestructible," according to researchers at Kaspersky Lab. But some disagree.

Smartphones safer than desktops, but not without risks

Angela Moscaritolo June 28, 2011

Apple's iOS and Google's Android mobile platforms are more secure than traditional desktop operating systems though both are still vulnerable to many types of attacks, according to a new report.

Sony faces new lawsuit following PSN hack

Dan Kaplan June 24, 2011

A new class-action lawsuit filed against Sony in the wake of the massive PlayStation Network/Qriocity breach claims the company fired security workers just days before the breach occurred.

SC Congress Canada: Remediating mobile risks

Angela Moscaritolo June 15, 2011

Employee emails, contact lists, authentication credentials and sensitive company documents are some of the primary assets that must be protected on mobile devices.

Personal data of 4,000 SEC employees exposed

Angela Moscaritolo May 20, 2011

The personal information of thousands of Securities and Exchange Commission was accidentally exposed in an unencrypted email.

Sony PlayStation Network back online after intrusion

Dan Kaplan May 16, 2011

Sony has restored its PlayStation Network (PSN), more than three weeks after service was crippled by a breach that resulted in the theft of personal information belonging to tens of millions of users.

Texas breach affects millions of state employees, retirees

Angela Moscaritolo April 12, 2011

The Texas comptroller's office on Wednesday will begin notifying 3.5 million state employees and retirees that their unencrypted personal data was inadvertently posted to a public server.