Another Information Security Breach

 Anyone holding such information on the internet should be required to have their systems independently tested on an annual basis. Many company's have audits of their financial records and internal controls. Why not audit the security controls of their network?

HIPAA: just something to read more about

 Haven't really delved into this at all. Came across this article at the link below. Other than the form which I kind of gloss over at any new doctors office. I really don't know much about HIPAA. The author at the link below has a link to some more documentation on HIPAA. Just posting this as one of those things I'd like to read more on when I get a chance (Sarbanes-Oxley is another one).

Target Follows Blockbuster and Goes Blu Ray

 Follow up to my June 20, 2007 post. Looks like Target is following Blockbusters lead and supporting Blu Ray...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Target plans to carry only Blu-ray high definition DVD players through the holiday shopping season, a move that boosts the Sony-backed technology and may deal a blow to rival HD-DVD.

In a statement on Thursday, Sony Corp. said that Target will exclusively carry Blu-ray players "at least through the holiday season" and will also expand its inventory of Blu-ray discs.

The move begins in October with Target's sale and promotion of Sony's BDP-S300 unit, which sells for about $500.

It was the second major retailer in as many months to throw its weight behind Blu-ray in the industry wide standards war reminiscent of VHS and Betamax. Blockbuster, the largest U.S. provider of home movie entertainment, in June set plans to line its shelves with Blu-ray DVDs, saying that Blu-ray rentals are "significantly outpacing HD DVD rentals."

HD DVD is developed by Toshiba Corp. and backed by Microsoft Corp. and film studios including Warner Bros.. It competes with Sony's Blu-ray which is built into its PlayStation 3 game console, and supported by companies such as Samsung Electronics Co., Apple and Dell.

Earlier this month, the HD DVD camp said its stand-alone video players have outsold rival Blu-ray players by a three-to-one margin in Europe's main markets so far this year.

Mass market acceptance of high-definition video is still some way off, due in part to the high price of the devices, and the fact that some movies and programs are available on one platform and not the other.

(Reporting by Franklin Paul)

Information / Data Security

I hope that a person that commits a theft such as this is punished as severely as a criminal would be for bank theft or robbing a convenience store at gun point. I'd like to gather some of these articles and track what the outcomes are (don't know if time will permit). This is a big issue today whether you work in accounting, medical, retail... All company's really need to do is apply some basic accounting controls to their data (separation of duties, access to assets vs. access to records, etc.), follow through with some physical controls, then let the technology experts advise on data security techniques. Probably more complicated then I'm making it out to be, but if a company can keep its valuable trade secrets then they can protect their valuable customer data.

DATA SECURITY: 2.3M consumer records stolen, sold

Miami Herald via NewsEdge Corporation : Fidelity National Information Services, the electronic-payment processor that agreed to buy EFunds for about $1.8 billion last month, said an employee stole 2.3 million consumer records and sold them to a data broker. Certegy Check Services, a Fidelity unit which helps businesses clear checks, sued William Sullivan in a Florida state court to retrieve the information and end its use. The personal, bank account and credit-card data were resold to direct marketers, the Jacksonville company said. "We don't anticipate losing any business as a result of this situation," Renz Nichols, president of Certegy, said on a conference call. "We have seen no evidence that any credit card or bank account information was used for anything other than marketing." Banks, financial firms and retailers are focusing on data security after system breaches led to consumer lawsuits and losses. Retailer TJX Cos. said in March that hackers stole at least 45.7 million card numbers, the biggest theft of such data. MasterCard and Visa reported in June 2005 a security breakdown that exposed 40 million cards to fraud. Certegy also sued Sullivan, formerly a senior database administrator, for misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty and breach of confidentiality agreements. The complaint didn't specify the amount of damages sought by the company. Certegy fired Sullivan after it discovered that the information was sold, Michelle Kersch, a spokeswoman for the subsidiary, said. Sullivan was one of five workers with access to the records, Nichols said. Lawyers for the firm said they didn't have an address or telephone number for Sullivan, who couldn't be reached by Bloomberg News for comment through directory assistance or computer searches. The stolen data included names, addresses, telephone numbers, birth dates, as well as bank account and credit card information, the company said. After receiving the information, the data broker sold names and addresses, but not customers' entire bank account numbers, to the marketing firms, Nichols said. The Secret Service, a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department that investigates fraud, is "actively investigating this case," said John Joyce, special agent in charge of the agency's Tampa field office. It's a felony to transfer, possess or use private customer information for unauthorized purposes, he said. Shares of Fidelity National fell 8 cents to $54.70 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has gained 36 percent this year. "It's the responsibility of institutions like Fidelity to strictly limit access to data, to make sure the people handling the data are people we can trust," said Adam Levine, chairman of Identity Theft 911, a financial services firm in Scottsdale, Arizona. Certegy, which employs about 1,000 people, is notifying consumers about the data theft, and has alerted credit reporting agencies as well as the Visa and MasterCard networks to be on the look out for fraudulent transactions, Nichols said. As far as the company knows, "no one was financially harmed," he said. <>