Data breaches are increasingly common in Europe, so take a moment to remind yourself that the same problems are also endemic across the Atlantic.
The top US breaches of healthcare data in the first half of 2012 have been named and shamed on the internet beginning with the stealing of patient information from 780,000 Medicaid patients and recipients of the Children's Health Insurance Plan from Utah Department of Health. It is reported that this was taken on 30th March by a hacker from Eastern Europe.
Loss of 10 back-up disks containing information about 315,000 surgery patients treated at at Emory University Hospital from 1990 to 2007 happened on 18 April. The breach led to potential exposure of surgery dates and reasons, names and social security numbers.
The next day, an employee of South Carolina Department of Health was held by police due to apparently emailing information for over 220,000 people to his private account, according to the article released by Healthcare IT News.
Specific data included Medicaid ID numbers, which can be linked to social security details, names, phone numbers and dates of birth.