'New' memory stick contained confidential records

By Andy McCue
Posted on ZDNet News: Aug 7, 2003 2:14:00 PM

Hospital bosses in Greater Manchester have tightened up IT security procedures after a Crewe estate agent found a memory stick sold as new contained confidential details of 13 cancer patients.

A report into the security breach, which happened earlier this year, found that the data had been transferred onto the memory stick when a computer storing a database of patient details was sent for an upgrade. The hospital's IT supplier Pocos took the computer to MBS Computers in Crewe, where the data was copied onto the stick. But the investigation was unable to ascertain how it then came to be sold as new. Read the full story on silicon.com.