Outsourcing Breach Response Lowers Costs
By Doug Pollack, Chief Marketing Officer for ID Experts
The Ponemon Institute last month released their 5th annual 2009 Annual Study: Cost of Data Breach. This year, the report explored several new areas and came up with some interesting and in some cases surprising conclusions…
On Managing Your Own Health Records
By Doug Pollack, Chief Marketing Officer for ID Experts
Microsoft HealthVault is designed to let us collect, store, and share health information critical to our family’s well-being and Google Health allows us to organize our health information all in one place, gather our medical records from doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies, and share our information securely with a family member, doctors or caregiver. For now, I probably won’t start trusting my medical history to either Microsoft or Google…
Healthcare Data Breaches Slow To Surface
By Doug Pollack, Chief Marketing Officer for ID Experts
The 2009 ITRC Breach Report had captured numerous healthcare data breaches since the September 23rd effective date for the HITECH Act. So, I’m perplexed as to why there aren’t any data breaches over 500 individuals yet listed by HHS. Surprisingly, there is nothing there.
HITECH Act and Protecting Health Privacy
By Doug Pollack, Chief Marketing Officer for ID Experts
These new regulations come at a time when healthcare breaches are on the rise; according to the 2009 ITRC Breach Stats Report healthcare breaches account for over 66 percent of all records breached this year, up from 20 percent in 2008. In fact, some of the largest names in healthcare suffered data breaches.
Report: Data Breaches Hike Fraud Risk 400%
By Doug Pollack, Chief Marketing Officer for ID Experts
This report should be heeded by those banks, health care organizations, government agencies, insurance companies and others that we entrust with our social security and checking account numbers, birth dates and mothers’ maiden names, and in some cases our personal health information.
Critical Steps When Your Email Is Breached
By Rachel James, Author and Cybercrime Authority at ID Experts
BBC News announced that more passwords to email accounts were posted: Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, Comcast, and Earthlink users appear among those impacted. Again, security experts are urging those with accounts to change their login details. These are extra steps everyone should take at least once a year, or during situations where an account may be compromised:
Tools for Quantifying Risk Exposure are Few
By Doug Pollack, Chief Marketing Officer for ID Experts
The seeming inconsistency between the perception of being immune from data breach risks with the rapid growth in data breach incidents, led us to think about whether organizations can actually quantify their level of breach risk. We were somewhat surprised that there is not much available to organizations to help them in scoring their vulnerability.
Medical Data Breach Reports Likely to Soar
By Doug Pollack, Chief Marketing Officer for ID Experts
In recent years, the number of reported data breaches at healthcare organizations has soared, despite laws requiring the groups to protect patient information. In May, a hacker stole more than 500,000 patient records from a state-run database that tracks drug prescriptions in Virginia — and then demanded a ransom to return the information.
Evaluating Identity Theft Protection Products
By Rachel James, Author and Cybercrime Authority
Spoiler alert: There isn’t an effective identity theft protection product. Typically, a company claiming to be an identity theft protection company will provide one or all of these services; access to credit reports, credit monitoring, and database monitoring. Unfortunately, these services cause security problems themselves.
How Email Becomes Your Identity (Theft)
By Rachel James, Author and Cybercrime Authority
Your email is as firmly established as an identity as a credit report- it contains details of your finances, address history, and birthday just as a credit report would. Your address book may reveal your mother’s maiden name, and a compromise of the account could easily reveal your tax information or social security number. A compromise of this account could be devastating.
