Omar Villafranca reports that a winning $60 storage unit auction bid yielded personal and medical information on hundreds of people: But the storage unit also had boxes of sensitive information, including copies of drivers licenses and Social Security cards, credit union reports and financial reports. The letters were addressed to a closed-down nursing facility. The…
Wire-transfer fraud poses a growing problem
Doreen Hemlock filed this report last week: Identity theft takes many forms, but Lenny Vigliotti never imagined it would show up as somebody wiring $12,000 from his South Florida saving account through multiple banks to end up in the Ukraine. Nearly three months after he noticed the money missing, he’s yet to recoup the cash….
Consumers Are Ditching The $2.4 Billion ID Theft Protection Market
Andy Greenberg writes: As purse strings have tightened over the last couple of years, most consumers no longer think spending $200 a year on identity theft protection services makes sense. And they’re probably right. A study out Tuesday from identity-theft-focused Javelin Research shows that only about 25% of consumers now subscribe to an identity theft…
(Follow-up) Credit Card Skimming Suspect Pleads Guilty
Following up on a case reported previously: Gabriel Camara, 36, of Washington, D.C., pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. Camara and a co-conspirator, Nicole Ward, paid servers at several local restaurants to capture customers’ credit card numbers on skimmers, officials said. The stolen information was then given to others…
Maine: Student SSN Collection for Tracking On Hold After Data Breach
I’ve previously covered the new law in Maine that asks parents to provide their children’s Social Security Numbers so that the state can track the students. A number of school boards had the wisdom to write to the parents and basically say, “Look, we have to ask you for it, but we encourage you to…
Maryland Court: Employees Who Steal Data from the Company Computer Do Not Violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
Nick Ackerman of Dorsey & Whitney LLP has a nice write-up on a Maryland court decision that although it doesn’t deal with PII, does deal with whether an employee can be found guilty of “unauthorized access:” A federal district court in Maryland held that an employee who stole proprietary data from his prior employer did not…