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Ancestry.com (Ancestry) was sued on November 30, 2020, in a putative class action case filed in the Northern District of California for “knowingly misappropriating the photographs, likenesses, names, and identities of Plaintiff and the class; knowingly using those photographs, likenesses, names, and identities for the commercial purpose of selling access to them in Ancestry products…

The criminals behind the Maze ransomware [view recent related posts here and here] have gone big and hit Cognizant, one of the largest technology consulting companies in the U.S., with its nasty ransomware.

Cognizant stated on its website that it “can confirm that a security incident involving our internal systems, and causing service disruptions…

Vicious malware continues to be deployed by China-based attackers. A new strain of malware, dubbed “HiddenWasp,” which has the ability to remotely infect computers, has been discovered by a security researcher at Intezar. The malware is believed to have originated from a Chinese forensics firm; the malware is hosted by servers owned by a Hong…

On June 3, 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a fraud alert to notify consumers about genetic testing fraud schemes (the Alert). According to the OIG, fraudulent actors are using the provision of free genetic testing kits to obtain Medicare information from unwitting consumers, and…

On January 24, 2018, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued its “Draft NIST Interagency Report 8202 Blockchain Technology Overview” which it announced as NIST’s “Report on Blockchain Technology Aims to Go Beyond the Hype.” The press release announcing the issuance of the report starts by stating “Beguiling, baffling or both—that’s…

By now most smartphone users are aware of location tracking used by both Apple and Android operating systems.  Basic location tracking is a system which uses GPS data to know the phone user’s location.  However, according to a recent article published by Quartz, Google’s data collection goes far beyond basic location tracking.  Not only does the data collected go beyond simple location information, but the ‘Opt In’ service Google uses to collect that data, Location History, isn’t as truly Opt In as users might expect.  According to Quartz, Google’s Location History underlies many of Android’s main apps, including Google Assistant and Google Maps.  Furthermore, Opting In to Location History for one app may actually give many apps access to Location History’s data and the ability to send that data to Google.
Continue Reading Google Tracking of Android Users Goes Beyond the Expected

Covered entities, including employer sponsored health plans, should brace for audits and enforcement of the Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification rules by the Department of Health & Human Service Office of Civil Rights (OCR) following OCR’s recent announcement of a large HIPAA settlement last month on the heels of its release of the preliminary results…