Attorney General Eric Holder is urging Congress to require businesses to quickly alert consumers and law enforcement agencies in the wake of a significant data breach, similar to the ones at Target and Neiman Marcus.
More than 300,000 personal records for faculty, staff and students who have received identification cards at the University of Maryland were compromised in a cybersecurity breach this week, according to school officials.
Illinois residents are increasingly worried about how businesses protect their personal and financial information in the wake of widespread data breaches in 2013. The Illinois Attorney General’s Office saw a 1,600-percent increase in data breach complaints compared to 2012. The office received more than 20,500 complaints in 2013, and identity theft complaints recorded the largest increase – from 2,544 complaints in 2012 to 3,009 in 2013. Within this category, Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office reported a significant increase in complaints about data breaches specifically – from 33 complaints in 2012 to 576 in 2013.
Hospitals need to do a better job of encrypting patient data to address the spiraling scale of security breaches, concludes a new report from healthcare IT security company Redspin. The report also notes that healthcare organizations need to bridge the gap between the demand from doctors and nurses using their own devices in the workplace (BYOD) and enacting the necessary security measures to ensure patient information contained on those devices is protected if they are lost or stolen.
The Secret Service is urging U.S. lawmakers to do more to prevent the cyber thefts similar to those that have recently hit Target Corp and other major retailers. According to William Noonan, a top agent with the Secret Service’s cyber operations branch, “Legislative action could help to improve the nation’s cybersecurity, reduce regulatory costs on U.S. companies, and strengthen law enforcement’s ability to conduct effective investigations.”
Governments and corporations are facing considerable risk to their data, their underlying networks and the reliability of their products because of a confluence of three factors.
While American shoppers say they are very concerned about the safety of their personal information following the massive security breach at Target, many aren’t taking steps to ensure their data is secure. Just 37 percent of surveyed consumers have tried to use cash for purchases rather than pay with plastic, and only 41 percent have checked their credit reports. Even fewer have changed their online passwords at retailers’ websites, requested new credit or debit card numbers, or signed up for a credit monitoring service.
