Lindsay Kines and Rob Shaw report: The British Columbia government is investigating a major security breach after police discovered the personal records of 1,400 income-assistance clients in the home of a government employee, the Victoria Times Colonist has learned. The records covered a period from December 2006 to April 2007 and included names, addresses, birth…
Category: Government Sector
NE: Hackers Breach State Database
A hacker has broken into the Nebraska Worker’s Compensation database, prompting an FBI investigation and an effort to contact those who may be affected. Several thousand people could be affected by the breach, which was discovered last week when the state’s chief information officer noticed an unusual amount of Internet traffic traversing the Worker’s Compensation…
UK: Addresses and signatures taken from St Albans council offices
Alex Lewis reports: Four laptops containing the personal details and signatures of more than 14,000 St Albans people have been stolen from the district counil, the Review can reveal. District council officials realised last week that a laptop containing the names, addresses and dates of birth of 14,673 people – everyone who applied for a…
EFI victims’ bank account numbers released
Karen Velie reports: In the age of rampant identity theft, San Luis Obispo County officials, in a recent mailing to Estate Financial Inc. (EFI) victims, deliberately placed some investor bank account numbers on the outside of envelopes they mailed to the victims through their financial institutions. “My bank called me and said that they had…
Data breach could affect 60,000 GIs, civilians
Jim Tice reports: The Corps of Engineers is investigating the recent loss of an external hard drive that could pose identify theft problems for as many as 60,000 soldiers and Army civilians. Maj. Mark Young, a Corps of Engineers spokesman in Washington, said the security breach occurred in the command’s Southwestern Division, which is headquartered…
Bits ‘n Pieces
In the justice system: As an update to a story previously reported, John B. Spencer III, and Donald E. Stoner, both of Lancaster have pleaded guilty to an ID theft scheme that targeted DUI offenders in Pennsylvania by using information provided in their publicly available court records. A grand jury has indicted five men and…