Brian Krebs reports on another municipality that has been victimized by cybercrooks: A rash of home foreclosures and abandoned dwellings had already taken its toll on the tax revenue for the Village of Summit, a town of 10,000 just outside Chicago. Then, in March, computer crooks broke into the town’s online bank account, making off…
Category: U.S.
IL: Detectives solve ID thefts; victims ate at same restaurant
Madison County sheriff’s detectives say their big break in solving a string of identity-theft cases was when they learned all four victims dined recently at the same restaurant – Amarillo Tex’s Steakhouse. The information from their credit cards was stolen using a small device called a “skimmer.” Detectives learned that an employee of the restaurant…
Missing investment firm backup tapes contained account info
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,…
John Muir Health to notify 5,450 patients of data breach
John Muir Health, the Walnut Creek-based hospital system, said Monday it has begun notifying 5,450 patients by mail of a “potential breach of their personal and health information.” The move came after the theft two months ago of two laptop computers at the John Muir Physician Network Perinatal office in Walnut Creek, officials said April…
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…
Former FDIC Employee Admits Leaking Financial Data
Merikay Wootton, 63, Lenexa, Kansas, has pleaded guilty to disclosing confidential information while she was an employee of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, U.S. Attorney Lanny Welch said today. Wootton pleaded guilty to unlawfully disclosing confidential information from a government agency. In her plea, she admitted she was working as a loan officer for Columbian…