U of Miami loses data on 2.1 million patients

While they contend that the data is unreadable--and therefore poses no risks--officials with the University of Miami School of Medicine have gone public with the news that someone stole back-up tapes holding health and financial information on about 2.1 million patients. The data, which contains information on patients going back through 1999, was stolen from a storage company contracted to hold the records. The data includes names, addresses, Social Security numbers and, in some cases, health and financial information. The university plans to directly notify 47,000 patients whose data could have included credit card or other payment information.

However, officials say that since the data is stored in a "complex and proprietary format," the thieves won't be able to access it. According to an analysis by computer security consulting firm Terremark Worldwide, which analyzed a similar set of back-up tapes, the nature of how the data was compressed and encoded should make it extremely difficult for thieves to access it.

To find out more about U of M's data theft problem:
- read this Florida Healthflash item

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