Contractor Folds After Causing Breaches

talkinsecurity writes "A single contractor, privately-held Verus Inc., has been traced as the source of no less than five hospital security breaches in the past two months — and those breaches have put the company out of business in a matter of weeks. Verus, which managed the websites of as many as 60 of the country's largest hospitals, has folded its entire business within the past few weeks, without a word to anyone. Apparently, a single IT error led to the exposure of at least five hospitals' patient data — at least 100,000 individuals' personal information — and caused Verus' primary investor to pull the plug. The hospitals, which initially reported their breaches separately, were left with no one to sue."

Comments

Re:And that's the problem with corporations

[Gorshkov]

Engineers are legally responsible for all of the design decisions that go into their work.

Yes, they are - and they should be. But you're not held responsible for the decisons of *others*. If some contractor says "Rebar? We don't need no stinkin rebar!" and the bridge falls down, he's sued, not you - because it wasn't your design decision.

I see no reason now to hold corporate shills - erm, CEOs and other board members - to the same standard.

They are - that's the whole idea behind due diligence - showing that you DID do your job. But how the bloody hell do you think it's fair to hold a director responsible because some wanker forgot to put the firewall back in place? And wtf was it doing down in the FIRST place?

Let's Ignorantly Blame Capitalism!

[smitth1276]

Because it isn't like this sort of thing EVER happens with giant, inefficient, incompetent government bureaucracies (like the VA). The difference is that in this case--with a free market--the people who suck go out of business, while the VA just says "whoops" and continues to suck.
Okay, you may resume your blind faith-based, anti-capitalist religious babbling now. Chomsky told you to think something, so it must be true!

Single IT error?

[skinfitz]

Don't tell me - that 'single IT error' was choosing Microsoft as an OS platform..?

Re:Not very much, and I don't want to go back ther

[ShieldW0lf]

You're talking quite literally about dismantling the cornerstone of modern civilization.

That's what I'm actively conspiring towards, I don't know about the rest of you.