[ISN] P2P Puts Medical Data At Risk

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:13:28 -0600 (CST)
http://www.informationweek.com/news/healthcare/security-privacy/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224000042

By Nicole Lewis
InformationWeek
March 18, 2010

Many home computer users don't realize it, but the next time they 
download a movie, a video or some old sentimental song, they may be 
giving an intruder the opportunity to search the PC's files for 
sensitive information, including their health records, a new study 
finds.

What kind of sensitive information? Well, according to Khaled El Emam, 
Canada research chair at the University of Ottawa, and the lead on a 
research paper on the inadvertent disclosure of personal information 
through peer-to-peer file sharing programs, the information found was 
"very personal and very rich in detail."

By using simple search terms like "patient file", "medical form", or 
"medical", researchers retrieved medical authorization forms, 
confidential corporate information, and private letters.

"For example, we found a letter that a mother wrote to her 16-year-old 
daughter's camp director giving him all the complete details of her 
daughters medical history, health conditions, health insurance card 
numbers, and her medications," El Emam said.

[...]


___________________________________________________________
Register now for HITBSecConf2010 - Dubai, the premier 
deep-knowledge network security event in the GCC, 
featuring keynote speakers John Viega and Matt Watchinski! 
http://conference.hitb.org/hitbsecconf2010dxb/
Received on Thu Mar 18 2010 - 23:13:28 PDT

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Thu Mar 18 2010 - 23:20:51 PDT