Our pick of recent high profile data breaches and their impacts:
Staples – Staples recently confirmed that the retailer is investigating a potential breach, but no details are available as to how many stores have been impacted. According to reports, multiple banks had identified a pattern of credit and debit card fraud, suggesting that several Staples locations were experiencing a data breach3.
Sourcebooks – In an ironic turn of events, Brian Krebs reported that Sourcebook, the publisher for his upcoming book on cybercrime, Spam Nation, suffered a data breach. According to the publisher disclosure letter on the California Attorney General’s website, the breach occurred through a vulnerability in the company’s shopping cart software. April through June 2014, the credit card numbers, billing information, and some account passwords were compromised for more than 5,000 shoppers4.
Penn Highlands Brookville – A Pennsylvania hospital has confirmed that approximately 4,500 patients may have been impacted in a potential data breach. A third party vendor, which held the patient records, was hacked. As a result, patient names, addresses, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers, phone numbers, insurance information, medical information, and gender may have been compromised. As a precaution the hospital is notifying patients of the recent hack until they can confirm the extent of the breach5.