About 14,000 students, former students and faculty at Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin had personal information placed on a web server that was not secure. The files placed on the web included names and Social Security numbers, but university officials say there is no evidence that any of that information has been accessed or…
Category: U.S.
CA: Tossed tax files found
Beatriz E. Valenzuela reports that a bag of discarded tax files was found behind a Hesperia business. Thankfully, it was found by someone in law enforcement: “It was a black canvas bag full of payroll files,” Hill said, with personal information such as Social Security numbers. “There were 12 to 14 bundles of files and…
Theft of personal documents in Fort Worth led to two-year crime spree
Dave Lieber reports that a nurse’s aide who was a convicted ID thief stole another nurse’s aide’s identification card and then used her identity in ” one of the biggest identity theft capers in Tarrant County, one that targeted more than half a dozen area nursing homes and home healthcare businesses and at least a dozen…
Six charged in skimming ring at Wrigley Field, Chicago restaurants
Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced criminal charges against six defendants alleging they illegally obtained personal banking information from patrons dining and visiting Chicago area restaurants and attractions, including Wrigley Field and Magnificent Mile’s RL Restaurant. Defendants Joseph Woods, Alex Houston, Jenette Farrar, Essence S. Houston and Kenyetta Davis were arraigned earlier yesterday in Cook County…
Cryptic Studios uncovers old hack, notifies users
A reader alerted me to a breach notification he received from Perfect World subsidiary Cryptic Studios, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developer. You can read the web version of their notice. The hack occurred in 2010 but was only first discovered now due to “increased security analysis.” The intruder reportedly accessed account names, handles,…
Employee snooping in IRS database: it’s like looking people up on Google or Facebook – defense attorney
Are cases of access in excess of authorization involving federal employees snooping in databases treated too lightly? Levi Pulkkinen reports on a case where some may think that a federal employee who misused access to the IRS database got off too lightly: An IRS worker accused of using the agency’s service database to snoop on her…