According to the San Francisco Chronicle, more than 1,000 Cedars-Sinai Medical Center patients have had personal information taken by a former employee, who used the identities to steal from insurance companies.

In a letter written to affected patients last week, the hospital warned that their information had been found during a search of the home of the employee, who has pleaded not guilty.

District attorney’s office spokeswoman Jane Robinson said that the suspect is believed to have netted at least $69,000 in the scheme but the probe is continuing.

The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) just released its identity theft predictions for 2009. Here are some of the scams that are expected to increase next year:

• Real estate-based scams: These scams include refinancing current loans, and adding in unforecasted payments or property to increase the cost of the loan.
• Credit card scams: Thieves may advertise the ability to get credit cards despite a poor credit score or the lack of a Social Security number. There will continue to be more scams that offer to consolidate your credit card debt or to renegotiate your interest rates.
• Other scams: Job scams are on the rise. Consumers have also been receiving more “phishing” scam emails due to the merging of financial institutions and stores.
• Professional thieves and targeted attacks: The ITRC anticipates an increase in more sophisticated ways to “mine” information, perhaps by organized crime groups.
• Check Fraud: As it becomes more difficult to get new lines of credit, identity thieves may be drawn more to commit check fraud. These crimes may take the form of stolen checks, using checks thrown into the trash by unknowing consumers or even synthetic checks.

If you receive an official-looking email that appears to come from the government, be careful. It may be harmful to you and your computer.

WTVY News reports that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) are warning people to look out for phishing emails that appear to come from the federal agencies.

“We’re getting reports of an e-mail that appears to come from the IRS and tells recipients to fill out an attached form and fax it in,” said IRS spokesperson Dan Boone. “Other scam e-mails ask you to click on a link and provide personal information online.”
Boone says that people need to be aware of two things:
1. The IRS never sends e-mails about your taxes.
2. If you get a scam e-mail, don’t access any links or attachments.

The bottom line is that you should never provide any personal information over email. And never open links or attachments unless you can verify that they came from a trusted source.

Black market criminals offered to sell details on 21 million German bank accounts for $15 million, according to an investigative report by WirtschaftsWoche (Economic Week), which got hold of a CD containing 1.2 million accounts after a face-to-face meeting with criminals in a Hamburg hotel.

IT World reported that German journalists posed as buyers working for a gambling business, and negotiated with the criminals who were selling the data. They were given a CD containing the 1.2 million accounts when they asked for proof that the data was legit.
That CD contained the names, addresses, phone numbers, birthdays, account numbers and bank routing numbers of the theft victims. It seemed to be collected from call center employees, the magazine said. Criminals would be able to use this data to withdraw funds from a victim’s account.

According to eWeek, a Enterprise Strategy Group survey of IT decision makers revealed that more than half of respondents reported their organization had experienced a data breach in the past year. Their biggest barrier when it comes to database security was lack of budget.

While 58 percent of the 179 respondents reported the database is where most confidential data is located, 54 percent said a lack of internal processes and controls hinder the effectiveness of their database security efforts.