UC Berkeley Health Records Hacked

[JMcEntegart]

The University of Berkley, California has begun notifying current and past pupils that their information may be at risk.

UC Berkeley Health Records Hacked : Read more

 

[kategra84]

it's all a set-up only to get this law voted : http://www.tomshardware.com/news/obama-shut-down-internet-legislation,7478.html

 

[Roffey123]

And if it gets passed, kategra84 and everyone else will get Swine Flu! THE SKY IS FALLING!

In other news, I'm sure it'll get sorted soon.

 

[kategra84]

no the sky is not falling, just the internet, freedom off speach, the right to be trialed in court;
Bit no worry i live in EU where we are mostly divided and our goverments still have some independence ...

just look for information, don't be naive and think things will only get better

 

[jsschneidereit]

They better figure this out... >[

 

[Guest]

Were they "hacked" or was this poor security, lazy users/admins or lack of enforcement?

 

[Guest]

Well, it's a good thing the Obama administration snuck in language requiring migration to electronic records into the "emergency stimulus act". I think it was between the anti-tobacco advertising money and the STD education grant - you know several of the items that are key to 'stimulating' the US out of this recession

I say good thing because by doing this we avoided all that pesky discussion about the change and any issues that might be associated with it. The law also allows the gov't to take any action they deem 'reasonable' against any doctor/health provider that does not do this within a prescribed timeline (of course this is done at the health providers expense). Again all of this was stuffed (snuck?) into a 1200+ page bill that congressmen were given

 

[mdillenbeck]

@a new world
Unfortunately, this is the sad state of the US political system. Myself, I think of all the riders that ALL sides and administrations have added to legislation along with the PATRIOT ACT reprint the night before the vote. Some senators have stated that the huge packet they received to vote on was still warm from the presses when they received it.

@think about this
We think alike. I was going to go into CS, but what I really wanted was a software engineering program with an eye on security. Over the last few years I have become painfully aware that computer scientists are obsessed with optimization of algorithms and often times completely ignore security - and this is indicative of the industry on a wider scale. I've since realized I can code, but what I can't do is code securely and thus have given up my aspirations in CS.

Unfortunately, these news stories of large scale hacks are becoming all too common. However, such things did happen before computers existed. Computers only make the scale much greater.

 

[hungryghost]

Yeah, this really sucks. I'm a Berkeley student and received emails about this from the university several days ago. Here's the website the school created with information about this breach:

http://datatheft.berkeley.edu/
(it's funny they created an entire subdomain for this.)

From other reports I've seen, the hack appears to have originated overseas. I've read that this is probably an organized criminal act with the aim of obtaining personal info for identity theft purposes. The only really sensitive data they got was my SSN though, but this worries me none-the-less. I've known people who've been the victims of identity theft, and it's a pretty awful.

 

[Raidur]

Is there a point in keeping the records of so many people's SSN's? And why aren't they stored a little more securely...? You would think they would have them on a separate non-internet network or something. Especially with all these 'worms and hacks' on the news.