Tim Hull reports: Countrywide Financial employees stole and sold “tens of thousands, or millions” of customers’ personal financial information, invading their privacy and exposing them to identity theft, a class action claims in Ventura County Court, Calif. The class seeks to know, among other things, whether Countryside merely aided and abetted the theft and illegal…
Category: Breach Incidents
Former FDIC Employee Admits Leaking Financial Data
Merikay Wootton, 63, Lenexa, Kansas, has pleaded guilty to disclosing confidential information while she was an employee of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, U.S. Attorney Lanny Welch said today. Wootton pleaded guilty to unlawfully disclosing confidential information from a government agency. In her plea, she admitted she was working as a loan officer for Columbian…
OH: Private papers found in trash
Ryan Gauthier reports: For several weeks, a mound of city documents containing Social Security numbers, phone numbers and carbon copies of checks filled a Dumpster at Smith Park, where they were accessible to anyone. The Journal received a tip that led to the discovery of countless junked records containing personal information for Middletown residents, along…
Unencrypted personal info of LPL Financial clients on stolen device
As I’ve noted in the past, LPL Financial has reported a number of breaches in the past few years, none of which seem to have been reported in the mainstream media. On March 9, the firm reported yet another breach. According to a letter sent by Marc Loewenthal, Senior Vice President and Chief Security/Privacy Officer…
NV: Washoe County School District notifies parents of stolen student info
A reader informed DataBreaches.net that on February 15, a burglary at a locked Washoe County School District building resulted in the theft of two flash drives containing limited personal information on a number of the district’s students. On March 11, the Department of Student Health Services notified parents and guardians about the theft of the…
Navy took more than a year to announce personal data breach
The Washington Post seems to have jumped in on a breach first exposed by the Ventura County Star. Federal Diary reports: In case of danger or a natural disaster, the U.S. Navy can rapidly dispatch troops, fighter jets or relief supplies to troubled areas around the world. So why did it take the Navy 17…