North East King County Regional Public Safety Communication Agency (NORCOM), a company that provides emergency communication services to the public, fire and police agencies, had a server breached in late December.
How many victims? Up to 6,000.
What type of personal information? Names, addresses, birth dates, driver's license numbers, Social Security numbers, and limited medical information.
What happened? A server that stored medical records for three Washington state fire departments was breached in late December. Data on firefighters as well as individuals who placed emergency calls was compromised.
What was the response? NORCOM is coordinating with local and federal agencies to investigate the breach, and is contacting people whose data might have been compromised. The server is also no longer in use.
Details: The intricacies of the breach have not been disclosed. NORCOM has set up an information hotline and email for those affected by the incident.
Quote: “Immediately when the breach was discovered, NORCOM took swift actions to identify and analyze the depth of the breach; we are working with the Bellevue Police Department and with the United States Secret Service's Electronic Crimes Task Force on this investigation," said Tom Orr, executive director of NORCOM.
Source: www.komonews.com, Komo News, "Security breach exposes 6,000 King County medical records," Jan. 13, 2014.
