By letter to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office dated March 29, Proxima Alfa Investments’ attorney-in-fact Publio Vallejo reported that backup tapes containing account information had been stolen more than six months ago. A letter dated March 30 to the affected individual(s), states that the firm, which is in liquidation and had ceased operations mid-2009,…
Category: Of Note
Countrywide Sold Private Info, Class Claims
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…
The DOJ Criminal Division’s Laptop Computer Encryption Program and Practices – Audit Report
From the summary of findings in The Criminal Division’s Laptop Computer Encryption Program and Practices, Audit Report 10-23, March 2010: Criminal Division-Owned Laptop Computers Our review found that of the 40 laptops we tested for encryption software, 10 did not have encryption, and 9 of those 10 did not have Windows passwords enabled. All of…
Reconsidering the retailers’ attempts to keep their identities secret
Over on The Tech Herald, Steve Ragan takes a somewhat more sympathetic view to J.C. Penney than I have generally taken. Steve writes, in part: Most of the media reports are painting the picture that J.C. Penney suffered a breach and did nothing. That isn’t entirely true. The company cooperated fully when asked and it…
The Supreme Court confirms a penalty of 361,208 euros on Iberia for losing passengers’ personal data
The English seems a bit awkward, but the message seems clear. It seems like it took this incident over seven years to get to Spain’s Supreme Court. The Supreme Court confirms a penalty of 361,208 euros on Iberia for losing passengers’ personal data The Supreme Court has confirmed a penalty of 361,208 euros Iberia imposed…
Organizations Rarely Report Breaches to Law Enforcement
Kelly Jackson Higgins has a column on why organizations do not rush to share information with the FBI and why the FBI wants them to share more: …. the FBI will protect victim organization’s privacy, data, and will share what information it can from its investigation, he said, rather than continue with the mostly one-way…