In response to my Freedom of Information request, I received a batch of 15 breach reports received in February by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office. Of the 15, five of them were news to me:
- M&T Bank reported that an individual walked into their Pikesville branch and while talking with a branch manager, removed another customer’s completed auto loan application from the manager’s desk and walked out with it. The form included name, address, date of birth, and SSN. The bank called the police to report the theft.
- MetLife reported that they discovered that an employee had been sharing disability insurance applications with an unauthorized individual. Those forms included names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security Numbers, driver’s license numbers, and checking account information. The federal authorities are reportedly investigating the incident.
- Baltimore Chesapeake Bay Outward Bound Center reported that their office had been burglarized. Computer towers with limited staff information were stolen, but of greater concern, the staff found a cabinet that contained employment applications for their staff unlocked. Information in the applications included names, addresses, SSN, and bank account numbers. There was no indication that any of the records had been removed. The center’s own investigation revealed that a break-in at a secondary warehouse and enabled the burglars to obtain keys to other buildings.
- Select Portfolio Servicing (SPS) reported that in January, their (unnamed) mortgage service vendor ftp’d two files containing images of 1099A and 1099C forms for SPS clients to SPS’s backup server without using encryption instead of sending it encrypted to the secure server. SPS detected the error on February 11. The vendor was unable to determine with any certainty whether the three logged attempts to open the files were by the vendor.
- Spring Mill Partners reported that laptop computers (plural, but number not specified) were stolen during an office burglary on February 3. The letter, written by ID Experts, does not even tell the affected individuals specifically what types of information were on the stolen laptops. According to their web site, SMP provides “a full range of professional services to our clients that include family office services, tax, retirement and estate planning. “
In addition, we finally have the actual breach reports on some incidents noted in NYS’s logs, as reported here previously:
- Beecher Carlson: two employees had their laptops stolen while at a company meeting off-site. The laptops contained names and Social Security numbers of 1,530 Maryland residents who were employees of the firm’s customers. The total number of individuals affected was not reported but we know from Maine’s records that 66 Maine residents were notified and that Beecher Carlson reported 2,824 affected to New York State.
- The Equifax inadvertent disclosure incident reported to NYS as affecting 35 New York residents occurred when Equifax’s payroll vendor mailed W-2 forms to “most current and former Equifax employees.” For “some U.S.-based employees,” the control field number was viewable through the envelope window and was the individual’s SSN. [see update, below]
- Nationwide Bank reported that due to a card sorting error, signature cards to be completed containing customers’ names and SSN were sent to the wrong customers. A total of 62 customers nationwide were notified of the error.
Update: My bad. We already had the Equifax breach from media and the NH Attorney General’s Office.