The UK government's loss of two disks containing social security and bank details of a whopping 25 million British citizens emerged on Tuesday, and has already seen one very senior head roll - that of Paul Gray, chairman of the UK's tax organization, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.
Gray's resignation was announced on Tuesday, but was not enough to seal the fallout from the data loss, which has escalated up to the prime minister.
I caught CNET Editor at Large Brian Cooley on the CBS Evening News report last night, "The Secret Lives of Teens." In the second installment of this three-parter, which featured a tug-of-war between a daughter and her mother concerned about her risky online behavior, Cooley observed that, "This is just the return of the Cold War, with different players. Instead of the U.S.
Personal data on every child in the country and national insurance numbers and bank account details of parents and carers claiming child benefit have gone missing after the government sent two password-protected CDs through the post.
The loss, one of the worst incidents of its kind, has sparked the sudden resignation of Paul Grey, the chairman of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) today.
Six out of 10 family doctors are reluctant to upload patients' medical records on to a national electronic database, according to a new survey. GPs said they feared medical records would not remain confidential if they were put on to the database.
Major identity thieves obtain the personal information they crave from retailers, financial companies and other businesses about half the time, a recent study suggests, undercutting a common perception that potential victims should worry most about being scammed by people they know.
WPBF News 25 reporter Brian Albert recently took a look into how easily computer repair shops could steal personal photos, music, financial information and more from customers' computers. Best Buy Geek Squad Supervisor Henry Roper told WPBF that personal computers carry a large risk of exposure when individuals keep all their private information on them.
"For some people, their computer is their livelihood," Roper said. "If you have control over someone's computer, you have control over all their information."
A new system from AT&T (NYSE: T) introduces the era of low-cost Big Brother surveillance. Is this something CIOs should be interested in -- or afraid of?
Online social networks are locked in a fierce battle to determine who can be the friendliest. Facebook welcomed developers last May to build applications for the site in exchange for revenue. MySpace, Friendster and others soon followed suit. Earlier this month, Google pushed the "everyone is welcome" attitude to its extreme with OpenSocial, a partnership of social networks that will let developers create a common set of applications to be used across many sites.
Attackers have stolen passwords and accounts from 92 nonprofits by infiltrating systems at Convio, the leading online marketing company for nonprofits. Affected nonprofit organizations include the American Museum of Natural History, Working Assets, CARE and Free Press.
Germany is the land of ideas and innovations. Yet it is not only business competitors who may try to gain secret access to German expertise, it is also foreign intelligence services that are spying on German companies. Whether it's research results, strategies for development, product information, client data or budget plans -- business secrets of successful companies are increasingly becoming coveted by industrious spies.
