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Security Breaches
All of us have worked hard to build our good credit, which enables us to finance our cars, homes, college educations and much more. So the act of some huge retailer, university or credit card corporation allowing our vital personal information to be stolen is a volatile subject.
There have been so many numerous security breaches in the last several years that it is too information to go into detail for all of them. Therefore this summary will cover the most important points concerning these horrific events:
45.7 Million Credit and Debit Cards
Computer hackers who gained entry into TJX’s customer information stole data from TJX, a chain of around 2,500 stores. Hackers also obtained the store chain’s encryption software and may have unscrambled the information. Because the giant retailer did not detect the security breach and deleted much of the data over time, it was impossible to verify how many cards were stolen. The hackers first breached the system in July 2005, however TJX did not discover the crime until December 2006. In addition, other customers who had returned merchandise without having a receipt (some 455,000 people) also had their personal information, including drivers license numbers) stolen.
TJX Hacker Apprehended
August 2007 – A Ukrainian man, selling credit and debit card numbers, was apprehended by U.S. postal investigators in Turkey. The postal inspection global service commented that the man was probably just a middleman, as they had information indicating that other people were the masterminds of the attack. The capture follows arrests of 10 people in Florida, accused of using stolen TJX data, who were not related to the Ukrainian man (indicating how the sale of illegal data is globally widespread).
UCLA Massive Data Breach
December 2006 – Hackers broke into UCLA database and stole personal information of 800,000 of the university's current and former students, faculty and staff members. University officials confirmed that the attackers stole names, Social Security numbers and birth dates for over a year before the breach was discovered. In the initial six months of 2006, 29 colleges experienced security breaches involving the personal information of 845,000 people.
100 Million Data Leaks
In December 2006, announcements of security breaches by UCLA (800,000 records), Aetna Insurance (130,00 records) and Boeing (382,000) brought the total to 1000,152,810 records stolen. At Aetna, thieves in a burglary heist stole data stored in on backup tapes in a lockbox. At Boeing, social security numbers and other information on current and former employees were seized when a laptop was stolen out of an employee’s car.
Security Breaches at Federal Agencies
October 2006 – A congressional report has revealed that since 2003, there have been almost 800 incidents of security breaches at all 19 federal departments, exposing millions of citizens. What’s more, the vast majority of these incidents were thefts of computers or data disks containing social security numbers and other sensitive data. Incidents in the congressional report included:
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A Department of Education magnetic tape containing the personal information of more than 11,000 student loan borrowers was lost.
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A security breach of an Air Force database holding personal data of more than 30,000 members of the military.
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The Commerce Department experienced 214 incidents of lost or stolen computers at the Census Bureau.
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Veterans Affairs officials reporting their findings required two large spreadsheets detailing hundreds of security and privacy breaches.
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April 2007 – Tens of Thousands of Americans who received loans or other financial assistance from two Agriculture Department programs had their social security numbers openly exposed in a publicly available database, opening them to the threat of identity theft. The breach was only discovered the department heads were notified by a farmer from Illinois!
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August 2007 – A government study has shown that Internal Revenue employees handed over crucial computer information to a caller pretending to be a technical support person in a security test operation. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration ran the covert test and the callers got 61 of the 102 employees and managers to cooperate by providing their own user name and temporarily changing his or her password to one the caller had suggested, exposing taxpayer data to identity theft and other fraudulent schemes.
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April 2007 – Government officials announced that for over 10 years the Census Bureau had been posting on their website the Social Security numbers of 63,000 people who received financial aid. Because this action violated federal privacy laws to prevent identity theft, the government finally shut down those pages of the website.
MasterCard International Breach
More than 40 million credit card accounts were exposed to open fraud as a result of a massive computer breach – the largest breach to date. As a bright note amidst the disaster, MasterCard announced that only 68,000 accounts were considered to be at high risk.
Citigroup Breach
CitiFinancial, a subsidiary of Ctitgroup, disclosed that United Parcel Service lost a box of computer tapes with the information of 3.9 million customers.
Bank of America Breach
May 2005 – Bank of America and Wachovia Corporation notified over 670,000 customers about a breach resulting in their account information being illegally sold to a con man posing as a collection agency.
Monster.com Waits Five Days to Reveal Loss
August 2007 – After waiting five days, Monster.com disclosed that computer hackers in the Ukraine, an area active with professional criminals, stole the names and confidential contact information of 1.3 million job seekers. There is no way American authorities can pursue and prosecute foreign hackers in that region of the world.
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Sources: Chronology of Data Security Breaches Guardian Edge (www.guardianedge.com) A Chronology of Data Breaches Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm) Committee Report Finds Data Breaches Throughout Federal Government Committee on Oversight and Government Reform oversight.house.gov/documents/20061013145352-82231.pdf (http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1127)
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