British Health Records Stolen

This is really beginning to get to me. With the proliferation of laptops in our society, you would think that knowledge of security would begin to rapidly spread as well. However, this is the second story in less than a week of a laptop being stolen from a car. Now, if this was an office of some sort, with semi-inconsequential data it would be understandable. But it seems that more and more, Healthcare IT staff are carrying around patient data on their personal laptops. These are people who are carrying around credit card info, banking numbers, social security numbers, Names, dates of birth. And i still wouldn't have a problem with it if they would take some sort of rudimentary precautions to ensure the protection of the data. However, there have been cases of IT staff storing full system backup tapes, laptops, USB Crypto keys, and entire servers in the back of their cars. They are then completely amazed when these top-level security measures are thwarted by a crook with a crowbar. This latest incident occured after a British IT worker for the NHS trust left his laptop unsecured in his car, along with 21,000 patients details. To make things worse, none of the information was encrypted. So the thief now has complete access to any and all patient data. The NHS trust reinforced the now common perception that they were completely technologically incompetent by stating (trying to make the situation better) "the data will almost certainly by wiped by the thief"

What steps should you take in order to secure a system from theft?
A. Set a Bios Level Password
B. Set at least a 14 digit password.
C. Require some sort of Biometric Authorization for Access
D. Always keep your data in an encrypted folder
E. If practical, Hide private data inside of another file
F. Keep any backups in humidity controlled, insulated environment.
G. Rule of Thumb: If your system can be seen, its public data.
H. Thumb of Rule: If your system is in your car, it deserves to be stolen.

Millions of Health Records stolen. Again.

And here I am, Sitting at my desk in the middle of a storm, watching twitlive, browsing the internation. What do I come across? Another, Another, Another, Another, Theft of CONFIDENTIAL information. Did the criminal slide in under the cover of darkness, bypass laser security, and swiftly crack into a safe containing a base of backups? Nope, the ever intelligent Network Admin decided to keep the backups in, the back-of his car. Do you want more info on the massacre of confidential information? If you must, read on:

The University of Utah Hospitals & Clinics is currently notifying 2.2 million patients about the theft of medical billing records. On June 2, a box of backup tapes containing patient and guarantors billing records was stolen out of a car belonging to a contracted independent storage company. The tapes contained the personal information on 2.2 million patients and guarantors including patient names, related demographic information and diagnostic codes. In addition, these records contained the Social Security numbers of 1.3 million patients. The Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Department, the FBI and the U.S. Postal Service are investigating the theft. According to Lorris Betz, M.D., Ph.D, Senior Vice President for Health Sciences, University of Utah Hospitals & Clinics is taking aggressive steps to protect patient confidentiality including notifying all 2.2 million individual through postal mail, offering one year of free credit monitoring to those whose SSNs were on the tapes and offering a $1,000 reward for the return of the tapes, no questions asked. The University of Utah Hospitals & Clinics has also setup a hotline - 866-581-3599 - and a web site - healthcare.utah.edu/billingrecordstheft - to help answer any questions and provide more information about the theft.