The names and Social Security numbers of at least 27,000 Commerce Department employees were exposed to a risk of identity theft following an inappropriate transfer of the personal information in mid-July, according to a letter sent to department employees last week. An employee with the National Finance Center mistakenly sent an Excel spreadsheet containing the…
Category: Government Sector
Police files found in dumpster
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of personal files from the Scranton Police Department were found unshredded in a dumpster, according to a news story on WNEP. “One or more files that should have been shred were thrown into the dumpster,” said Scranton Director of Public Safety Ray Hayes. He admitted that a mistake was made. Newswatch 16…
SSA employee convicted for unauthorized access to govt computer
Roberto Rodriguez, 54, formerly of Fort Lauderdale, FL, was convicted by a jury on July 29, 2009 of seventeen counts of exceeding his authorized access to a government computer. Rodriguez is scheduled to be sentenced on October 9, 2009, before U.S. District Court Judge William J. Zloch. Rodriguez, while an employee at the Social Security…
Methinks he might protest too much
As someone who routinely makes snarky pronouncements about breaches, I was actually impressed by how Toronto Hydro handled their recent data breach. Yet some people were strongly critical. The facts of the breach, as I currently understand them are that: 179,000 Toronto Hydro customer account numbers were illegally accessed in the company’s e-billing system. Toronto…
Data of soldiers, patients found on P2P
The personal information of 200,000 soldiers and 20,245 hospital patients, along with other critical data from government networks, is being made to the public through peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, according to testimony yesterday at a hearing of the House Government and Oversight Committee. The security breach included data like names, Social Security Numbers, addresses, illnesses, next…
Baytown releases banking info for 10,000 by mistake
Baytown officials have notified 10,019 people cited by red light cameras that some of their personal banking information mistakenly was released to a resident who had filed a public information request about the controversial traffic program, Mayor Stephen DonCarlos said Monday. The mayor stressed the resident who received the information has deleted a spreadsheet —…