Nathan E Botts / Saturday, March 31, 2018

/ Categories: Personal Health Information, Mobile Health & Health Apps, Privacy & Security

MyFitnessPal - Data Breach Notification

Approximately 150 million accounts hacked in February 2018

Here is the breach notice sent to MyFitnessPal account holders:

To the MyFitnessPal Community:

We are writing to notify you about an issue that may involve your MyFitnessPal account information. We understand that you value your privacy and we take the protection of your information seriously.

What Happened?

On March 25, 2018, we became aware that during February of this year an unauthorized party acquired data associated with MyFitnessPal user accounts.

What Information Was Involved?

The affected information included usernames, email addresses, and hashed passwords - the majority with the hashing function called bcrypt used to secure passwords.

What We Are Doing

Once we became aware, we quickly took steps to determine the nature and scope of the issue. We are working with leading data security firms to assist in our investigation. We have also notified and are coordinating with law enforcement authorities.

We are taking steps to protect our community, including the following:

We are notifying MyFitnessPal users to provide information on how they can protect their data.
We will be requiring MyFitnessPal users to change their passwords and urge users to do so immediately.
We continue to monitor for suspicious activity and to coordinate with law enforcement authorities.
We continue to make enhancements to our systems to detect and prevent unauthorized access to user information.

What You Can Do

We take our obligation to safeguard your personal data very seriously and are alerting you about this issue so you can take steps to help protect your information. We recommend you:

Change your password for any other account on which you used the same or similar information used for your MyFitnessPal account.
Review your accounts for suspicious activity.
Be cautious of any unsolicited communications that ask for your personal data or refer you to a web page asking for personal data.
Avoid clicking on links or downloading attachments from suspicious emails.

For More Information

For more information, please go to https://content.myfitnesspal.com/security-information/FAQ.html.

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How to Protect Your Privacy as More Apps Harvest Your Data

A New York Times Personal Tech series article by Brian X. Chen

Retrieved By Health eConsultation / Wednesday, May 31, 2017 0 14826 Article rating: 5.0

In this article written by Brian X. Chen from the New York Times he discusses some of the potential ways in which mobile apps that you download to your phone may be collecting and using your personal data in ways you did not know.

One of the key takeaways is that there are ways in which to protect yourself and tools that can help you figure out which apps are collecting your data and how to remove their ability to do so.

Stay Private: How to Hide Your Webcam, Mute Your Mic, and Turn Off Notifications

An article from Zapier

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One consideration as you gather and store more personal health information on your computer and devices is making sure that you are not inadvertently sharing this information (or some other aspect of your personal health) through your webcam or mic.

This article from Zapier outlines several different ways and some handy applications that can help you control this on your PC or MAC.

Determining the Value of Compromising Your Privacy

An article from Engadget

Nathan E Botts / Sunday, August 13, 2017 0 9932 Article rating: No rating

This article from the Engadget web magazine discusses how your online searching behaviors might be monitored by different companies that you are unaware about. This data is likely used to build profiles that may impact the advertisements you see, credit ratings received, and other potential social network aspects as of yet identified.

Cybersecurity: Crash Course Computer Science #31

Retrieved By Health eConsultation / Wednesday, October 11, 2017 0 14448 Article rating: No rating

Cybersecurity: Crash Course Computer Science #31Cybersecurity is a set of techniques to protect the secrecy, integrity, and availability of computer systems and data against threats. In today’s episode, we’re going to unpack these three goals and talk through some strategies we use like passwords, biometrics, and access privileges to keep our information as secure, but also as accessible as possible. From massive Denial of Service, or DDos attacks, to malware and brute force password cracking there are a lot of ways for hackers to gain access to your data, so we’ll also discuss some strategies like creating strong passwords, and using 2-factor authentication, to keep your information safe. Check out Computerphile’s wonderful video on how to choose a password! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NjQ9b3pgIg Pre-order our limited edition Crash Course: Computer Science Floppy Disk Coasters here! https://store.dftba.com/products/computer-science-coasters Produced in collaboration with PBS Digital Studios: http://youtube.com/pbsdigitalstudios Want to know more about Carrie Anne? https://about.me/carrieannephilbin The Latest from PBS Digital Studios: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1mtdjDVOoOqJzeaJAV15Tq0tZ1vKj7ZV Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet? Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/YouTubeCrash... Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/TheCrashCourse Tumblr - http://thecrashcourse.tumblr.com Support Crash Course on Patreon: http://patreon.com/crashcourse CC Kids: http://www.youtube.com/crashcoursekids

Sharing Your Electronic Health Record (EHR)

A Video from the NIH All of Us Research Program Channel

Nathan E Botts / Friday, October 27, 2017 0 11772 Article rating: 5.0

From the NIH YouTube Channel: Do you know what information is contained in your electronic health record (EHR)? Eric Dishman, director of the All of Us Research Program, explains what’s in your EHR and why the data is so valuable for researchers.

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What is Health eDefense?

Health eDefense is the act of protecting your personal health information. This not only protects your privacy, security, and safety, but also protects the data of your family, friends, and others in your community.

The Health eDefense platform is dedicated to providing consumers with actionable information on how to protect their personal health information effectively from cyber threats. Health eDefense provides informational content and education related to cyber security, privacy and consent, security, and related topics and policies such as HIPAA and GDPR.

Cyber security is impacting our daily lives, and our personal and protected health information is a target for hackers and criminals looking to make money off of our personal data. Your personal health data will always be about your health, demographics, social, lifestyle, financial history, and other related details. Once taken, they cannot be taken back.

We think the best cybersecurity tool is education and awareness, and we hope to provide users with tools and insight to protect themselves and their data better.