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"In light of a spike in identity theft and the frequency with which personal information is stored on portable devices, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) have expanded Generally Accepted Privacy Principles (GAPP) to include protocols for securing and disposing of personal information. "Safeguarding personal information is one of the most challenging responsibilities facing an organization, whether such information pertains to employees or customers," said Everett C. Johnson, CPA, chair of AICPA/CICA Privacy Task Force and a past international president of ISACA, a global information technology association. "We've updated the criteria of our privacy principles to minimize the risks to personal information." GAPP offers guidance and best practices on securing portable devices, breach management and ensuring continued effectiveness of privacy controls. The guidance additionally covers disposal and destruction of personal information. The principles are designed for chief privacy officers, executive management, compliance officers, legal counsel, CPAs and CAs offering technology advisory services. "Portable tools such as laptops and memory sticks provide convenience to employees but appropriate measures must be put in place to secure them and the data they contain," said Donald Sheehy, CA.CISA, CIPP/C, associate partner with Deloitte (Canada) and a member of the AICPA/CICA Privacy Task Force. "We must stay abreast of technological advances to assure that proper measures are put into place to defend against any new threats." Created by the AICPA/CICA Privacy Task Force, GAPP is designed to help an organization's management team assess an existing privacy program or address privacy obligations and risks. The principles provide a framework for CPAs and CAs to offer privacy services to their clients and employers, such as advisory services, privacy risk assessments and attestation or

"The number of fraudulent IRS websites taken down in 2008 soared to 3,030, up more than 240 percent from 2007, according to a GAO analysis of Internal Revenue Service data, suggesting a sharp increase by criminals to draw unassuming taxpayers to faux tax agency websites to steal identities and money. In a Government Accountability Office audit, made public Thursday, the GAO credited the IRS for implementing programs to prevent, detect and resolve identity theft, but said the tax agency needs to do a better job in assessing the effectiveness of its initiatives. And, as it relates to potential online abuse, the IRS should be more consistent in enforcing security controls. "

"Nearly every practicing doctor in the United States is being warned that their identities might have been stolen when the laptop of an employee of an insurance trade group was snagged from a car in Chicago. The laptop contained business and personal information such as Social Security numbers, addresses and certain identification numbers on the laptop of an employee from the Chicago-based Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, a trade group for the nation's Blue Cross health insurance plans. The association confirmed that an employee "broke protocol and transferred to a personal laptop" information that was stolen in late August. No patient information was on the database, and so far, no doctor has reported a security breach. However, nearly 20 percent of the doctors listed in the database have their Social Security numbers as their medical-care provider identification, putting these health professionals at risk for identity theft, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune."

"Consumers who have received a data breach notification letter are four times more likely than others to be the victim of identity theft, according to a survey released this week by Javelin Strategy and Research. Approximately 11 percent of U.S. consumers have received a data breach notification letter in the past 12 months with a third of the breaches involving Social Security numbers and 15 percent involving ATM PINs, according to Javelin's third annual survey of nearly 5,000 U.S. consumers, released Tuesday. Of those who have received a data breach notification letter in the past year, 19.5 percent said they were the victims of fraud associated with identity theft, compared to 4.3 percent who have not received a notification but were victimized. "It wasn't just a statistical anomaly," Robert Vamosi, a Javelin risk fraud and security analyst and the author of the study, told SCMagazineUS.com on Wednesday. "In 2007 and 2006, we saw a similar pattern, so this isn't a blip. This is something that has been going on for a while.""

The recent U.S. stimulus bill includes $18 billion to catapult the health industry toward the world of electronic health records. This is sure to light a fire under every hungry security vendor to position itself as the essential product or service necessary to achieve HIPAA compliance. It should also motivate healthcare IT professionals to learn where their sensitive data is located and how it flows. To be sure, with federal money allocated through 2014 for the task of modernizing the healthcare industry there will be many consultant and vendor businesses that will thrive on stimulus money. Healthcare is unique in that storage of electronic health records is highly distributed between primary care physicians, specialist doctors, hospitals, and insurance/HMO organizations. Information has to be efficiently shared among these entities with great sensitivity towards patient privacy and legitimate claims processing. Patients want to prevent over zealous employers from performing unauthorized background checks on medical history; claim processors want to prevent paying fraudulent claims arising from targeted patient identity theft. The bill has two provisions which turn this into a tremendously challenging plan, and a daunting task for securing patient data: * Citizens will have the right to monitor and control use of their own health data. This implies a large centralized identity and access control service, or perhaps a federated network of patient registration directories. Authenticated users will be able to reach into the network of health databases audit use of their data and payment history. * Health organizations suffering loss of more than 500 patient records must publicly disclose the breach, starting with postings on the government's Health and Human Services website. This allows related organizations to trace the impact of the breach throughout the healthcare network, but care must be taken not to disclose vulnerabilities in the system to intruders

Hackers broke into the Federal Aviation Administration's computer system last week, accessing the names and national identification numbers of 45,000 employees and retirees, a union leader says. Tom Waters, president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3290, said FAA officials briefed union leaders Monday about the security breach. FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown confirmed the agency's computers were hacked last week. Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here Waters said union leaders were told hackers gained access to two files. One file had the names and Social Security numbers of 45,000 employees and retirees on the FAA's rolls as of February 2006. Social Security is the U.S. government-directed pension system, and in the absence of a national identity card, other people's social security numbers can be used to steal identities for illicit purposes. Waters said the other file contained medical information that was encrypted. "These government systems should be the best in the world, and apparently they are able to be compromised," said Waters, an FAA contracts attorney. "Our information technology systems people need to take a long hard look at themselves and their capabilities. This is malpractice in their world." FAA officials told union leaders the incident was the first of its kind at the agency. But Waters said his union complained about three or four years ago about an incident in which employees received anti-union mail that used names and addresses that appeared to be generated from FAA computer files.

It's time to comply. Nov. 1 is here, and financial institutions throughout the U.S. are still scrambling to meet their Identity Theft Red Flags Rule compliance deadline. For the past year, we've done what we can to guide your efforts with articles, interviews, research, webinars and white papers. You can see the fruits of our efforts here. These are the resources you need to ensure not just your own compliance, but that of your third-party service providers and key business partners. Within this special guide, please find: * A summary of the final rule and guidelines, including a listing of all 26 red flags; * A detailed look at the examination procedures for the new rule; * Insights from federal regulators and banking practitioners on what to expect post-Nov. 1; * Analysis of what compliance means to your institution and its customers for years to come.

In this expert videocast, you will learn about Web 2.0 software, the threats they pose, and whether the benefits outweigh the risks. Key areas covered include the threats posed by services like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, as well as wikis and blogs. Our expert also dives into particular attack vectors and scenarios that are becoming popular, defensive policy, and technology best practices and Web 2.0 trends to monitor going forward. Speaker David Sherry CISSP, CISM - CISO, Brown University As chief information security officer of Brown University, David Sherry is charged with the development and maintenance of Brown's information technology security strategy, IT policies and best practices, security training and awareness programs, as well as ongoing risk assessment and compliance tasks. Sherry has 20 years of experience in information technology. He most recently worked at Citizens Bank where he was vice president for enterprise identity and access management, providing leadership for compliance and security governance. He had also served as Citizens' vice president for enterprise information security, overseeing the company's security operations and controls. He has taught classes at colleges in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island, as well as spoken on identity management strategy and implementation at industry conferences. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in business management.

Data Privacy Trends: Randy Sabett, Information Security Attorney March 26, 2009 Activity at the State Level Points Toward a Federal Data Breach Notification Law Data privacy legislation -- the trend started in California and is being discussed heatedly in Massachusetts today. Data breach notification and privacy laws have now been enacted in 40 separate states, and government observers think we're close to seeing federal legislation proposed. In an exclusive interview, Randy Sabett, a noted privacy/information security attorney, discusses: Trends in state data privacy legislation; What these laws mean to businesses; The Obama Administration's approach to data privacy; Trends to keep an eye on throughout 2009. Randy V. Sabett, CISSP, is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP, where he is a member of the Internet, Communications & Data Protection Practice. He counsels clients on information security, privacy, IT licensing, and patents, dealing with such issues as Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), digital and electronic signatures, federated identity, HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, Sarbanes-Oxley, state and federal information security and privacy laws, identity theft and security breaches. He served as a Commissioner for the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency.

Physician groups press FTC for exemption from Red Flag Rules With a May 1 deadline for compliance looming, the American Medical Association (AMA) has asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to suspend the application of the Red Flag Rules to physicians and publish a new rule so that physicians have an opportunity to provide comments. In a March 9 letter to the FTC, AMA Executive Vice President Michael D. Maves wrote that the AMA "strongly believes that the FTC did not provide physicians with an opportunity to review and comment on this Rule." Controversy. Under the Red Flag Rules, which were finalized in October 2007 under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), financial institutions and creditors must develop and implement written identity theft prevention programs. FACTA provides a broad definition of "creditor" as "any entity that regularly extends, renews or continues credit." The FTC has interpreted this definition to include health care providers and physicians. The AMA and several other medical trade associations have taken the position that physicians were not intended to be subject to the Red Flag Rules, but the FTC has held firm in its interpretation, in spite of the objections. In a Feb. 4 letter to the AMA, the FTC reiterated its position that "the plain language and purpose of the Rule dictate that health care professionals are covered by the Rule when they regularly defer payment for goods or services." The FTC also has taken the position that application of the Red Flag Rules to physicians will reduce the incidence of medical identity theft and will not impose a heavy burden on health care professionals. Rulemaking process. In addition to its claim that health care providers should not be classified as creditors, the AMA also has argued that the physician community was not informed that it would be subject to the Red Flag Rules.

The following is an excerpt from the book The Truth About Identity Theft. In this section of Chapter 11: Social Engineering (.pdf), author Jim Stickley explains how easy it really is to hack a password. People often ask me how hard it is to hack a password. In reality, it is rare that I ever need to hack someone's password. Though there are numerous ways to gain passwords on a network and hundreds, if not thousands, of tools available to crack encrypted passwords, in the end I have found that it is far easier to simply ask for them. A perfect example of this type of attack was a medium-sized bank that I was testing recently. The bank's concern was related to the new virtual private network (VPN) capabilities it had rolled out to a number of its staff. The VPN allowed staff to connect directly to their secured network while at home or on the road. There is no doubt that a VPN can increase productivity, but there are some pretty major risks that can come with that convenience. The bank explained that the VPN was tied into its Active Directory server. For people who are not technical, basically this just means that when employees log in via the VPN, they use the same credentials they use to log on to their computer at the office. So I went back to my office, sat down, and picked up the phone. The first call I made was to find out the name of an employee in the IT department. I called the company's main line to the bank, pressed 0, and asked to speak with someone in the IT department. I was asked what I was calling about, so I told the employee I was receiving emails from that bank that seemed malicious. I could have used a number of excuses, but I have found that if you tie in an unhappy customer with a potential security issue, your call gets further up the food chain. In this case, I reached a man who I will call Bill Smith. I made up a story about the email, and after a few minutes, he was able to explain to me that I had called the wrong bank and it was actuall

Johns Hopkins is alerting more than 10,000 of its hospital patients that they may have been victims of identity theft. An investigation suggests a former employee who worked in patient registration may have been linked to a scheme to create fake drivers' licenses in Virginia, according to this letter from Baltimore-based Hopkins to the Maryland attorney general's office. Most of the patients are at very low risk, the letter says - they're included because the former employee accessed their records in the course of her work. But a few dozen have already been identified as likely victims, and a few hundred who have Virginia mailing addresses and whose records were accessed by the former employee may also be at risk. Hopkins is offering those patients credit monitoring, fraud resolution and identity-theft reimbursement for certain expenses.

With identity theft on the upswing, Aram Langhans thought he was simply being prudent when he asked the Yakima Heart Center to remove his Social Security number from its files. "They had my insurance card and my driver's license. What else did they need?" said Langhans, a retired public school teacher insured by Group Health. Langhans said he was initially hooked up to a portable heart monitor that he was to wear for 24 hours, but the disagreement over his Social Security number prompted upper-level personnel to change their minds. He said moments after the device was attached, he was sent to a restroom to remove it and turned away. Shawnie Haas, administrator of the Heart Center, an independent outpatient group practice, declined to discuss the incident. But she said in an e-mail statement that the practice protects patients' privacy. "The Yakima Heart Center is careful to collect data pertinent to ensuring accuracy of our patient's medical record. Routine information collected for all patients includes name, address, date of birth, Social Security number, gender, and other specific information that helps us verify that individual's identity and insurance enrollment or coverage data. We are careful to maintain confidentiality of all patient information in our system." According to state and federal regulators, private insurance companies have moved away from using Social Security numbers for patient identification. But health-care providers in the Yakima Valley say they routinely collect them as "backup" in the event that patients' insurance doesn't pay the claim.

Why Google isn't ready to be an Enterprise vendor

At the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) I/O developer conference this week, Google Inc. will host more than 80 technical sessions on all of the Google apps and platforms we've come to know -- Android, Chrome, App Engine, Web Toolkit, AJAX and others. When reviewing the Google I/O Schedule this morning, I was disappointed by what could not be easily found. The conference will run this week, May 28 to 29, in San Francisco, and Google is expecting more than 2,000 attendees. Unfortunately, a long perusal of the schedule shows plenty of tracks with Search, Scale, and Performance in the title -- but only one track with Security. What about Privacy? Well, there's no tracks highlighting data privacy, either. There is a session that covers federated identity management, Practical Standards-based Security and Identity in the Enterprise. And it looks promising, but federated authentication and authorization is more about making sure applications and people can interact securely, not that an application, itself, is inherently secure.

Names, credit card numbers, Social Security numbers: information Daron Breinholt did not go looking for, but found Thursday morning. He took out the trash from the shoe distribution center, where he works, in the warehouse section on Salt Lake's west side. "I was just throwing away some stuff (in a dumpster) , and it was chock full of medical records," said Breinholt. "There's everything in there from canceled checks to routing numbers. They could steal a lot identities. A lot of identities were in there." At least some of the records appeared to come from Mountain Medical Center, a chiropractic office that had been in the Murray area until some months ago. Dr. Randall Malin said through his lawyer that he did not throw away records. "It's news to him," said Attorney Robert Harrison. Salt Lake Police packed away perhaps twenty boxes of papers, and said they would protect the documents, as they dug into the matter. Surveillance video, which 2News has not been able to see, reportedly showed two people who drove up in a red pickup truck Wednesday afternoon, and unloaded the materials from a trailer.

To assist small businesses and other entities, the Federal Trade Commission staff will redouble its efforts to educate them about compliance with the "Red Flags" Rule and ease compliance by providing additional resources and guidance to clarify whether businesses are covered by the Rule and what they must do to comply. To give creditors and financial institutions more time to review this guidance and develop and implement written Identity Theft Prevention Programs, the FTC will further delay enforcement of the Rule until November 1, 2009. The Red Flags Rule is an anti-fraud regulation, requiring "creditors" and "financial institutions" with covered accounts to implement programs to identify, detect, and respond to the warning signs, or "red flags," that could indicate identity theft. The financial regulatory agencies, including the FTC, developed the Rule, which was mandated by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA). FACTA's definition of "creditor" includes any entity that regularly extends or renews credit - or arranges for others to do so - and includes all entities that regularly permit deferred payments for goods or services. Accepting credit cards as a form of payment does not, by itself, make an entity a creditor. "Financial institutions" include entities that offer accounts that enable consumers to write checks or make payments to third parties through other means, such as other negotiable instruments or telephone transfers.

Many people are scaling back their summer vacation plans because of the current economic situation. Some are staying closer to home. Others may be taking shorter vacations. But it's important to remember that when you travel, your risk of exposure to fraud and identity theft may increase. It's a fact that people tend to let their guard down while on vacation. Criminals know this. Identity theft is often a crime of opportunity. Don't be a vacationer who presents a crook with that opportunity. Your personal information, credit and debit cards, driver's license, passport, and other personal information are the fraudster's target. A few minutes spent planning before you travel can help reduce the risk that a fraudster will ruin your vacation. Here are some tips to help you avoid any nasty surprises:

Being privacy saavy while on vacation - Priceless

The man accused of masterminding the largest identity theft in U.S. history agreed to plead guilty to related charges, according to court papers filed in Boston federal court on Friday. Albert Gonzalez is accused of helping to steal millions of credit card and debit card numbers from major U.S. retail chains, leading to tens of millions of dollars in fraudulent transactions. A former government informant who is already in jail, Gonzalez, 28, agreed to plead guilty to 19 counts in Massachusetts by September 11. The agreement also resolves charges pending in federal court in New York.

Social networking users are more vulnerable than ever and taking more risks with their online privacy. According to the 'Bringing Social Security to the Online Community' poll by AVG, while the social networking community has serious concerns about the overall security of public spaces, few are taking the most basic of steps to protect themselves against online crimes. Participants indicated concern over growing phishing, spam and malware attacks, and nearly half of those surveyed are very concerned about their personal identity being stolen in an online community. Despite widespread use of social networks at home and/or at work, 64 per cent of users infrequently or never change their passwords on a regular basis, while 57 per cent infrequently or never adjust their privacy settings. Further, 21 per cent accept contact offerings from members they do not recognise, more than half let acquaintances or roommates access social networks on their machines, 64 per cent click on links offered by community members or contacts and 26 per cent share files within social networks. As a result of this widespread proliferation of links, files and unsolicited contacts, nearly 20 per cent have experienced identity theft, 47 per cent have been victims of malware infections and 55 per cent have seen phishing attacks.

"The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued an interim final rule to beef up penalties for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accounting Act (HIPAA), as several Congressmen criticize the agency for leaving dangerous loopholes in the law. The new rules significantly increase penalty amounts that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services can impose for HIPAA violations of patient privacy, according to a statement from HHS. The new rules reflect requirements enacted in the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) sections of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. Before HITECH, maximum penalties were $100 for each violation or $25,000 for all identical violations of the same provision. A covered health care provider, health plan, or clearinghouse could be exempt from civil financial penalties if it demonstrated it did not know it violated the HIPAA rule. The HITECH act increases civil financial penalties by establishing tiered ranges of increasing minimum penalties, with a maximum $1.5 million for all violations of identical provisions. And a "covered entity" can plead ignorance as a protection only if it fixes the violation within 30 days of discovery."