The Identity Theft Resource Center offers a solution to the problem that has made headlines this week — young children have their pristine SSN misused to create credit histories for those who have poor credit ratings, are illegal immigrants, or have other illegal intent: Since the 1980’s, children in the US have been issued Social…
Category: Of Note
Break’s over: after decline in 2009, breach reports appear to rise in 2010
The Verizon breach analysis report released this past week reported declines in 2009 in both the number of records compromised and the number of breaches Verizon was asked to investigate. Their reported decline in number of breaches has some confirmation in reports from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and the Identity Theft Resource Center, who…
Three breach reports, three sides of the elephant?
The recently released reports by Verizon, ArcSight/Ponemon, and Digital Forensics all offer some interesting data and statistics on breaches, but after reading them, I am reminded of the analogy of the six blind men and the elephant, as their findings are not always wholly consistent with each other. If we can generalize from the Verizon…
A costly layover: laptop with over 32,000 SSN lost
Through its lawyers, Indianapolis-based First Advantage Tax Consulting Services (TCS) has notified the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office that on June 10, a laptop containing sensitive personal information was lost during an airport layover. The documents on the laptop included information provided by employers who were receiving TCS’s professional services in determining their eligibility for…
Ca: Tax collector may have used confidential files for business leads
Chad Skelton reports: A tax collector in B.C. used the Canada Revenue Agency’s computers to look up the private tax files of hundreds of high-income individuals, apparently in the hopes of hitting them up for a business she ran on the side, according to internal government documents. The CRA’s internal investigation report, obtained by the…
15 released pending trial in massive ID theft in Turkey
Fifteen people charged with selling computer programs offering illegally acquired identity information on nearly the country’s entire population were released Wednesday pending trial in Istanbul. Police announced Tuesday the cracking of the ring that had been stealing Turks’ identity information, including their names, addresses and telephone numbers. […] The Hürriyet reporter wrote that had he…