Data Breeches are costing millions each year. The HITECH Act has not changed data protection as first thought. Dr. Larry Ponemon from the Ponemon Institute (which conducts independent research on privacy, data protection and information security policy) has submitted a great blog on the statistics which is available at : http://www.ponemon.org/blog/post/poor-privacy-practice-is-ailing-healthcare-industry

It can happen to you. Worse it can happen to your children. Computer hackers. Taking control of you computer. Watching every move. The hacker used social networking sites to spread a virus and infect computers with malicious code, thus infect and take over more than 100 computers. This is more than just identity theft, it was for extortion and control. Read the following FBI press release and verify you have not had communications with the screen names or email addresses listed: http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/november/web-of-victims/web-of-victims

Despite the law stating medical breaches involving more than 500 people must be listed on the Health and Human Services (HHS) breach list, the Identity Theft Resource Center recorded medical breaches which never made the list. Do you know why? The HHS list allows the loophole of “risk of harm” without requiring federal law enforcement verification. One state has reported more than 200 breaches. Most are not included in the Identity Theft Resource Center Breach Report because they did not include sufficient pertinent details regarding the event. Some states now harbor a protected breach list which is not made public at all, or is only accessible by exercising the Freedom of Information Act. Doesn’t this make you wonder why is it all so protected? Read the entire article from the Office of Inadequate Security
http://www.databreaches.net/?p=12436

It is happening again, a large corporation has the potential loss of data due to a security breech. this means medical records, social security numbers even credit card information may have been exposed. The threat of Medical Identity Theft is even greater in a a case like this. Read California Health Line article at: http://www.californiahealthline.org/articles/2010/6/30/wellpoint-breach-could-have-exposed-enrollees-medical-financial-data.aspx

Data breeches, mismanagement of files, lost hard drives, health plans are more at risk, not just hospitals for identity theft. Last month, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Tennessee revealed that up to 1 million patients could be impacted by the theft of 57 computer hard drives that were encoded but not encrypted.
Read article by Caralyn Davis at: http://www.fiercehealthpayer.com/story/data-breaches-another-opportunity-bad-publicity/2010-05-17?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal#ixzz0oEOm6c5P