Andy Greenberg reports: Glance at 2009’s data breach statistics, and you might think the IT world had scored a rare win in the endless struggle against cybercrime. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, government agencies and businesses reported 435 breaches as of Nov. 17, on track to show a 50% drop from the number…
Author: Dissent
Cobra.com hack exposed customer card data for 9,000
Almost five months after a security breach was first discovered, lawyers for Cobra Electronics Corporation notified the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office that its web site at www.cobra.com had been hacked and customer card data might have been accessed. According to the letter from David E. Teitelbaum of Sidley Austin, Cobra was alerted to a…
Stolen Esai Inc. laptop had unencrypted employee data
FCI USA wasn’t the only firm notifying the New Hampshire Attorney General of a stolen laptop this week. By letter (pdf) dated November 16, attorneys for Eisai Inc. informed the state that a laptop was stolen from a Human Resources Department employee’s car in New Jersey on October 21. At least one file on the…
FCI USA notifies employees of stolen laptop
Lawyers for FCI USA have notified the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office that a laptop stolen from an employee may have contained a spread sheet with unencrypted personal information including names, Social Security numbers, and dates of birth for approximately 2,000 current and former employees. By letter dated November 19, K. Catherine Roney of Morgan…
ACORN Claims Theft of Dumpster Docs
R. Stickney updates us on the ACORN breach reported yesterday: ACORN says a man who took thousands of documents from a trash bin outside its San Diego County office broke the law and is demanding he return them. Amy Schur, who heads California’s ACORN operations, said Tuesday that her group filed a crime report with…
GAO: DoD loses track of 72,000 combat records
Judi Hasson reports: There are so many data breaches throughout government these days that it’s getting tiresome. The question is why do they keep happening? Last week, the Government Accountability Office disclosed another one–this time from the Defense Department. The GAO revealed that DoD could not account for more than 72,000 health questionnaires that were…