Jackson’s death certificate hacked by employees
July 24, 2009 by StaffPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Security
Is nothing sacred? Where computer systems are concerned, it seems not.
According to reports in the Los Angeles Times, the death certificate of Michael Jackson was accessed without authorization nearly a half dozen times in recent weeks.
At least six staff members at the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Department improperly viewed Michael Jackson’s death certificate hundreds of times in the two weeks right after the entertainer’s death on June 25, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.
Investigations by the coroner’s office have also uncovered vulnerabilities in two computer systems in which Jackson’s death investigation reports are stored, the Times said quoting Craig Harvey, the city’s chief coroner investigator.
The unspecified vulnerabilities could have allowed employees to gain unauthorized access to the investigation reports even though the reports were “locked,” the Times story said. It was not immediately clear, however, whether the reports had been accessed without authorization.
In some cases, employees printed the death certificate before it had become a public record, the Times said.
DocuCrunch.com delivers the latest IT and Imaging news once a week to the inboxes of over 200,000 IT and Imaging professionals.
Click here to sign up and start your FREE subscription to DocuCrunch!
Tags: hacking, Michael Jackson, secure documents
Loading ...
July 31st, 2009 at 6:57 am
Unfortunately, information of this nature will always be subject to the risk of invasion. Therefore, it is very important that system vulnerabilitities be addressed frequently and that administrators take time to develop as many “what if” scenerios in their IT strategies.
January 5th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
[...] Jackson’s death certificate hacked by employees [...]
January 12th, 2010 at 11:27 am
[...] 1. Michael Jackson’s death certificate hacked by Coroner’s Dept. employees [...]
January 13th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
TSHamm – you are missing the point. The Coroner’s office is also gathering evidence that could be used in criminal justice, not just for Michael Jackson, but for the other victims of an untimely death.
Access to the system has to be monitored and controlled so that justice can be served for those who are unable to speak up any more. If you can access data, you can also destroy or alter data.
January 20th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
>>If you can access data, you can also destroy or alter data.<<
only on a very poorly designed system. Most IT systems have separate view, update, delete, authority, dependong in the system design.
TSHamm is exactly right.
Maybe Mark T is saying that every single time someone looks at something, someone else will need to look over their shoulder and validate that?
If you think the California budget has a shortfall now … wait until we double the staffing for all the auditing.