June 2015 SM Online

In 2014, more than 2 million victims were affected by medical identity theft, an increase of nearly half a million victims compared with 2013, according to The Fifth Annual Study on Medical Identity Theft, a report commissioned by the Medical Identity Fraud Alliance, a public-private partnership aimed at reducing medical identity fraud. For the healthcare consumer, this type of identity theft can be expensive. According to the study, 65 percent of medical ID theft victims paid more than $13,000 to resolve the crime. The study was supported by Kaiser Permanente, ID Experts, Experian Data Breach Resolution, and Identity Finder, LLC, and was conducted by the Ponemon Institute.​

A new study—The Emergence of Cybersecurity La​w—looks at cyber law as a growing field for legal practitioners and the roles that lawyers are playing in responding to corporate cybersecurity threats.

The Food and Drug Administration is in charge of making sure the food that’s imported into the United States is safe and inspected. A Government Accountability Office report​ raises concerns that the FDA’s foreign offices are not conducting enough food inspections. 

Most new cars have wireless technology that could make them vulnerable to hacking or privacy intrusions, according to Tracking & Hacking​, a report by U.S. Senator Ed Markey’s staff. 

In a report released at Black Hat 2014, researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek detail the vulnerabilities in the computer components of a variety of vehicles that could allow hackers to gain control of the vehicle.

The U.S. Supreme Court ​allowed a woman suing for pregnancy discrimination to take her case back to court because she deserved another chance to prove that the company had treated her differently from other protected workers.

A federal appeals court denied a man’s petition of a claim to a whistleblower award as he submitted information to the Securities and Exchange Commission before the law in question was enacted.