Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility
From: Eric Ericson <harlequin () earthlink net>
Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 16:31:08 -0700
Sorry, 1 and 2 seem a bit contradictory. Let me clarify that a little (It's the 4th, and I've had a few beers). Enforcement on HIPAA can be both civil or criminal. The dividing line is whether is negligent or intentional. Intentional acts get referred to DHS to enforcement, Negligent acts are just considered Civil Rights violations. There's no HIPAA police as it were, or HIPAA agency. Cheers, -E2 -- Eric Ericson harlequin () earthlink net We make war that we may live in peace. - Aristotle
From: Eric Ericson <harlequin () earthlink net> Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 16:16:55 -0700 To: Stack Smasher <stacksmasher () gmail com> Cc: <full-disclosure () lists grok org uk> Conversation: [Full-disclosure] Undisclosed breach at major US facility Subject: Re: [Full-disclosure] Undisclosed breach at major US facility Granted, but there's 3 details here: 1) DHS (Who handles enforcement) stated that they would only start prosecuting violators as of last Feb ('06) 2) Prosecution and liability for this stuff is also handled by the folks who's data is disclosed. That means it's not a DA making the decision to prosecute, it's the person who's data is compromised. So if I my data is disclosed (and it might be) I pick up the phone and call my local civil rights attorney, and boom. You don't think some opportunistic tort lawyer will jump on that like they have Asbestos claims, Noprain, and any dozen other medical lawsuits? 3) The hospital WILL take action if you talk to them, if not because of HIPAA penalties, but because how it effect their JCAHO certification (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations). Part of the inspection process is checking for HIPAA violations, and if you lose your JCAHO cert it means you CANNOT accept Medicare or receive federal funding. While that may not seem like much, but given that (as an example) Stanford Hospital (which is one of the 10 best in the nation) gets 50% of it's income via Medicare it'll put the fear of god in the administration (trust me on that one, personal experience). Cheers, -E2 -- Eric Ericson harlequin () earthlink net All glory to the hypnotoad!From: Stack Smasher <stacksmasher () gmail com> Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 18:22:18 -0400 To: Eric Ericson <harlequin () earthlink net> Cc: <full-disclosure () lists grok org uk> Subject: Re: [Full-disclosure] Undisclosed breach at major US facility Hey Jackass, I know HIPAA has stiff penalties but the fact is people are to fucking lazy to prosecute cases that don't involve terrorism or effect shareholder value, and lets face it millions of peoples information has been exposed in the last 5 years and NO ONE has done shit about it. Look at Ernest and Young for example, those fuckups should all be rotting in jail right now for the amount of customer data that has been exposed on multiple occasions. I can count 10 incidents that I KNOW of, imagine how many have been kept quiet. HIPAA,Sarbanes Oxley,GLBA, and California breach act. are paper tigers and everyone that has a clue knows it, they are a bulldog with rubber teeth to give the general public a warm feeling about doing business's with corporations that cant get their shit together. If you think I'm wrong then prove it! 4) HIPAA does have teeth in a situation like this if this data disclosurewas due to negligence or malice. If the data was knowingly disclosed the penalty can be up to a US$250,000 fine and ten years in prison. That's for an individual, not an organization (as are most of the other fines).On 7/4/06, Eric Ericson <harlequin () earthlink net> wrote:(I'm not a lawyer, but I spent a couple of three years working IS in Radiology at a hospital so take it for what it's worth.) First a couple of things: 1) There is no HIPAA enforcement agency. All infractions are considered either a civil rights violation (yeah, I'm serious) or a criminal violation. 2) HIPAA applies to any company who has "data custodian" rights for any electronic Patient Health Information (ePHI). That means the hospital, vendors, even regular corporate HR departments (because of any information they might have about your prior medical conditions in conjunction with your Medical Insurance). 3) When you said you verified the patient data as being valid, what exactly do you hypothetically mean? The reason I ask is that the Patriot act has some VERY nasty penalties regarding offensive actions taken towards hospitals. If you're clean though, I wouldn't stress. 4) HIPAA does have teeth in a situation like this if this data disclosure was due to negligence or malice. If the data was knowingly disclosed the penalty can be up to a US$250,000 fine and ten years in prison. That's for an individual, not an organization (as are most of the other fines). So, with that said. What I'd recommend is that you contact the Risk Management department at the Hospitals. Explain the situation to them and just make it clear you're trying to help. They're biggest concern is C-ing the hospital's A, so I wouldn't stress to hard on them trying to place blame on you. Plus this also puts them in a situation where they knowingly have to disclose to their patients, and if the Risk Management group is mostly lawyers, so they're less likely to try to bury this. Good Luck, -E2 (Oh, if you're looking for more HIPAA info, check out UCSF Medical center's page at http://www.ucsf.edu/hipaa) -- Eric Ericson harlequin () earthlink net When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck NorrisFrom: r r <anothersecurityquestion () gmail com> Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 18:57:43 -0400 To: <full-disclosure () lists grok org uk> Subject: [Full-disclosure] Undisclosed breach at major US facility Need some advise here. I would like to know what to do if I --hypothetically speaking-- I were to retrieve _complete_ databases of a MAJOR us hospital. My hypothetical model is not brute force, but rather an 'accidental' discovery by trying to retrieve updates from a software vendor. Let's say this Big Name software vendor, who sells itself as being an authority on security, is so flipping retarded that they stick their customer data on a public CVS server. Let's say I sync to this and dump a couple hundreds of meg of 'updates' only to later discover that those are NOT updates. Those are data files for other customers (which when prodding, reveals itself to be very real, verified data of at least one high-profile hospital) I read up as much as I could on HIPAA, but this is beyond the slip-ups to be covered by HIPAA. Beyond medical records and privacy, this wreaks of woeful incompetence by who should be freaking security professionals!! (4 MAJOR organizations who have royally screwed up here). First thoughts are to call HIPAA (has to be federally reported for number of people and different states affected). And while HIPAA is supposed to protect the 'whistleblower', I don't put much confidence in it. Maybe a webpost through anonomizer (and borrowed connections) like I do to check gmail. And if these companies are notified, what happens? A slap on the wrist? Wash it under the rug and label the person discovering it all to be a Black Hat? Let's not forget about the diebold fiasco(s)---(fwiw I don't work for any of the involved companies--in my theoretical model I would solely be the customer of questionable software). One idea (by one of my imaginary friends who pretends to be a doctor and a former hospital board member) was to ABSOLUTELY NOT tell the hospital for various reasons. That alter-ego of mine instead suggested I get an attorney that specialized in that. That sounds expensive. Now, I feel like a victim. If _I_ have been able to discover such a gaping hole (and I didn't even TRY to find it), then I am pretty sure that it already has been taken. In any case, it will be stolen in a matter of weeks. Since that is inevitable, I should just remove all the data I obtained and forget about it. In the end, I feel bad for the hundreds of thousands of people who can be totally raped of their identities (or be scammed for extraneous chargesl, etc etc). But, why should I be the scapegoat for pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes? Any useable thoughts? _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/_______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/-- "If you see me laughing, you better have backups"_______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/
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Current thread:
- Undisclosed breach at major US facility r r (Jul 03)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility mikeiscool (Jul 03)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility Denis Jedig (Jul 03)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility Stack Smasher (Jul 03)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility Valdis . Kletnieks (Jul 04)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility Brian Eaton (Jul 04)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility Eric Ericson (Jul 04)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility Stack Smasher (Jul 04)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility nobody Wuss (Jul 04)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility Eric Ericson (Jul 04)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility Eric Ericson (Jul 04)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility pauls (Jul 04)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility Stack Smasher (Jul 04)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility Valdis . Kletnieks (Jul 04)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility Q-Ball (Jul 04)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility mikeiscool (Jul 04)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility Stefan Keller (Jul 04)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility Stack Smasher (Jul 04)
- Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility Valdis . Kletnieks (Jul 04)
- Re: Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility Valdis . Kletnieks (Jul 05)