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Police involved after a sensitive data leak occurred at Isle of Man’s Department of Health and Social Care

Recently, the self-governed state of the Isle of Man reported that one of their government departments had been subject to a sensitive data leak.

A recording device was stolen from a secured room at the Department of Health and Social Care. The recording device was used to record sensitive meetings with children and families. The department have said that the recording was not often used and only ever done at the request of the service user.
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RSPCA was given a fine by the ICO for secretly screening their donors by using wealth management services.

Very recently, the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has handed out penalty fines to two well-known charities for secretly screening their donors’ personal information, and then using an external wealth management company to analyse the data to find the most generous donors and work out who would be most likely to give again.

With this effective but illegal method, the charities then used direct marketing communications to ask targeted donors to make more donations. This is, however, a breach, of data protection legislation.
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Lynda.com, owned by LinkedIn and Microsoft, fell victim to a data breach which lost 55,000 passwords

Lynda.com – a subsidiary company of LinkedIn – has recently sent out an email to 9.5 million users to warn them of a data breach.

Although not all 9.5 million users’ data was apparently breached, the online learning company has been keen to alert all users of the breach “out of an abundance of caution”. The database that was accessed included contact information and courses that the users viewed, and a LinkedIn spokesperson also revealed that around 55,000 passwords were in the breached database.
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Famous trading card company ‘Topps’ hit by second hack inside a year!

Popular trading card company Topps has been hit with an ‘unforgivable’ hack, according to BBC News sources.

The majority of data hacks come as a surprise, but not necessarily this one. According to one security researcher, the company had been warned about security weaknesses prior to the hack, and seem to have done very little to defend themselves from what appeared to be obvious security risks.
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NHS admin worker guilty of illegally accessing sensitive medical records of friends and family

The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has given a former NHS administrator a fine for illegally accessing sensitive medical records of people they know.

Whilst working at the Tees Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust, the former admin worker took advantage of their position and searched for medial information on their friends and family without their consent. The former admin worker pleaded guilty to breaching s55 of the Data Protection Act. The ICO consequently issued a fine and have also ordered them to pay costs and a victim surcharge.
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ICO issues fine for historical society who had a laptop containing donor information stolen

The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has reported that a historical society has breached data protection laws when one of its work laptops were stolen.

An employee was using it away from the workplace and had set it down in an undisclosed location when a break-in occurred, and the laptop – among other things – was stolen. The laptop, purchased by the historical society, contained sensitive personal information of artefact donors.

The ICO did not further explain exactly what information this included.
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Multinational hotel chain hit by data breach: credit and debit data stolen!

A couple of days after Christmas, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) admitted that a number of their 5,000 hotels around the globe had been affected by a data breach.

It was reported that debit and credit information may have been stolen.

Some customers who visited those affected hotels have already reported fraudulent transactions on their bank accounts. Unfortunately, this New Year might not be the fresh start many were hoping for.
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“Unsolicited marketing calls have landed a legal firm a £30,000 fine” – Assist Law Ltd used private information solely to make unsolicited marketing calls

Assist Law Limited has been hit with a monetary penalty from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for making unsolicited marketing phone calls to people who were registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS).

The Weston Super Mare legal firm felt the force of the ICO who imposed the monetary penalty for making the phone calls for marketing purposes over a period of a year.
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“Millions of car dealership information spread on the web” – DealerBuilt’s “shoddy” system has reportedly caused a massive data breach

While data breaches are at an all-time high in the U.K., the U.S. are facing the same security crisis with huge data breaches happening all the time as well. A recent report showed that customers’ personal details from hundreds of car dealerships were put at risk due to an inadequate database.

DealerBuilt is a specialised Dealer Management System (DMS) which allows dealers to manage every aspect of a dealership, and they boast a “secure integration”, which is somewhat ironic given the breach…
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1.2 million KFC customers warned of data breach

Well-known fast food restaurant chain, KFC, has warned all 1.2 million of its loyalty card customers their details may have been breached after their website had been attacked in a cyber hack.

The fast food chain’s Head of IT, Brad Scheiner, issued the warning saying that “only around 30 members were targeted”.
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