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AT&T’s Online store was hacked over the weekend. Customers who purchased DSL equipment from the online store in the past are exposed to identity theft. Among the data stolen were credit card information along with other personal data.
AT&T Inc. said the system was hacked into over the weekend. The data of “fewer than 19,000 customers” were affected, the company said.
AT&T said it shut down its online store selling the high-speed Internet access equipment and would pay for credit monitoring services for the people whose files were accessed. The San Antonio-based telephone company notified the major credit card companies whose customer accounts were affected.
AT&T is currently investigating the cause of the breach and who was responsible.
Source: Houston Chronicle
Written by MCruz on August 30th, 2006 with 2 comments.
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An unidentified accounting firm had lost a laptop which contained unencrypted sensitive data belonging to US payroll employees of Chevron. The company is being tight-lipped on the details of the incident.
The San Ramon oil giant sent an e-mail to U.S. workers Monday warning that a laptop computer “was stolen from an employee of an independent public accounting firm who was auditing our employee savings, health and disability plans.”
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Kent Robertson, a spokesman for the company, declined to provide details about where the laptop theft occurred or the number of Chevron employees affected by the security breach.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Written by MCruz on August 19th, 2006 with 2 comments.
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About 1,200 Williams-Sonoma Inc. employees are receiving notice that their personal information is at risk to identity theft. A Deloitte & Touche employee was performing an audit of the company when the laptop containing the personnel data was lost.
The personal and financial information on the employees included payroll data such as names and Social Security numbers, Patricia Sellman, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco-based Williams-Sonoma, said.
After the laptop went missing, Williams-Sonoma sent a letter to staff who were affected, including some former employees, she said. These people have been offered free credit monitoring, Sellman added.
Source: MarketWatch
Written by MCruz on August 15th, 2006 with 1 comment.
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AOL has done the unthinkable. They have released the log of three month’s worth of searches by 650,000 users to the public. Michael Arrington of Techcrunch has the scoop:
The utter stupidity of this is staggering. AOL has released very private data about its users without their permission. While the AOL username has been changed to a random ID number, the ability to analyze all searches by a single user will often lead people to easily determine who the user is, and what they are up to. The data includes personal names, addresses, social security numbers and everything else someone might type into a search box.
The most serious problem is the fact that many people often search on their own name, or those of their friends and family, to see what information is available about them on the net. Combine these ego searches with porn queries and you have a serious embarrassment. Combine them with “buy ecstasy� and you have evidence of a crime. Combine it with an address, social security number, etc., and you have an identity theft waiting to happen. The possibilities are endless.
AOL has taken the download link off their site. This does not mean the file is no longer out on the loose. At this moment, it is being distributed on different websites and file-sharing networks.
Update (08/07/06): AOL admits to their mistake and apologizes.
“Although there was no personally identifiable data linked to these accounts, we’re absolutely not defending this. It was a mistake, and we apologize,” AOL’s Weinstein said. “We’ve launched an internal investigation into what happened, and we are taking steps to ensure that this type of thing never happens again.”
Source: Techcrunch
Written by MCruz on August 7th, 2006 with 5 comments.
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PSA HealthCare patients’ data was lost in a stolen laptop. A press release was issued yesterday by the company with the following information:
PSA HealthCare (Nasdaq: PSAI) today announced that a company-owned laptop computer was stolen from an employee’s vehicle in a public parking lot. The laptop computer contained certain personal information of approximately 51,000 current and former patients, including names and social security numbers and, in a limited number of cases, personal health information. The laptop computer was password protected and PSA has no indication that any of the information has been accessed or misused. However, PSA will begin to contact the affected individuals in order to provide them with steps to take to protect themselves from any possible misuse of their personal information.
Source: BusinessWire
Written by MCruz on August 5th, 2006 with no comments.
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About 1,500 job applicants’ personal information was stored in a laptop computer belonging to a contractor. The laptop was stolen from a secured locker at the Toyota plant in San Antonio, TX. Totoya officials speculate that the target of the theft was for the equipment and not the valuable data inside which had names and Social Security numbers.
The laptop belonged to an independent contractor who was testing people applying for jobs at the plant, officials said. The computer was stolen after-hours. Toyota officials were sending out notices to people whose information may have been compromised.
If you received notice about this breach, please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts.
Source: San Antonio News
Written by MCruz on August 4th, 2006 with no comments.
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