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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Legal

Did you see the $50,000 defamation lawsuit filed by an organization against a “tweeter”? The lawsuit is a lesson learned that you may want to use to better prepare your people and your organization about the potential legal liabilities associated with sending a tweet about someone else or about another organization. While I am not going to argue whether it is right or wrong, I want to bring attention to the personal details that the lawsuit exposes and how a person’s reputation or an organization’s reputation can be exposed no matter what the outcome of the court case. If you scroll down on the verifiedRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Information Security, Legal

A new Computer Security Audit Report was released by Legislative Division of Post Audit State of Kansas in July 2009 providing an overview of computer and network security for five state agencies.  The audit found weak password controls and missing security patches for servers and 39 percent of one unnamed agency’s passwords were cracked within five minutes using free software that can be easily downloaded from the Internet. To breach an agency’s passwords, hackers scan vulnerable servers that may not have the latest security patches applied and then locate an encrypted list of passwords they can copy and use password cracking software to reveal users’Read More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Human Resources, Legal

As more workers are let go in corporate layoffs and cutbacks, many disgruntled workers are taking legal action out of desperation.  Age and sex discrimination allegations are rising as workers claim they have been unfairly or improperly dismissed.   Class actions and individual claims are both increasing at alarming rates.  At a time when budgets are tight, resources are limited, and insurance rates are rising, organizations cannot afford to ignore employment requirements or  be vulnerable to expensive fines and lawsuits. Has your organization implemented effective unlawful discrimination and harassment policies? Have all personnel received training regarding discrimination and harassment policies?  Is this training updated on anRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Business Continuity, Incident Reporting, Information Privacy, Information Security, Legal

In 2007 the Swedish Bank, Nordea was stung for $1.1 million, in the “biggest ever” online bank heist.  250 bank customers were affected by the fraud after falling victim to phishing e-mails.  The e-mail contained a trojan horse that redirected customers to a false home page where they entered important login information.  Most of the customers affected had not been running antivirus applications on their computers. The bank covered the attacks and refunded all the affected customers. In 2009 Credit Union Customers received text messages notifying them that their debit cards had been inactivated.  The message gave a number to call to reactivate the cardRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Incident Reporting, Information Privacy, Information Security, Legal, Regulatory Compliance

The “octuplet mom” story not only created a media frenzy at Kaiser Permanente’s Bellflower hospital , the mom and her eight new born babies also created multiple lessons learned opportunities for every hospital that was paying attention. The lessons learned started in January when the eight new babies were born and making sure hospital personnel were prepared to handle the media frenzy and what they could say and not say and what actions were acceptable and unacceptable.  Does your organization have policies and procedures in place to handle a media frenzy? Then in March, Kaiser Permanente’s Bellflower hospital revealed that 15 employees lost their jobsRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Human Resources, Incident Reporting, Information Security, Legal, Regulatory Compliance

I recently blogged about the Veterans Affairs and the lost laptop that cost Veterans Affairs (tax payers) $20M to settle a lawsuit against them.  Now we have some very expensive trash. Attention all public and private organizational leaders!  Did you see the FTC charges released last week against CVS Caremark Corporation?  The costs of not establishing, implementing and maintaining a comprehensive information security program to protect the security, confidentiality, and integrity of personal information it collects from consumers and their employees is expensive! The FTC order requires CVS to pay $2.25 million to HHS to settle HIPAA violations and CVS is required to obtain independent,Read More →