The database at University of Southern California (USC) containing 2,70,000 records of past applicants was hacked. The database records included names and SSN’s of past applicants. USC learned about this breach on June 20 when it was tipped off by a journalist. USC has shut down the website and says it will restore it once new security measures are in place. As per the California law, the University has notified people whose names and social security numbers were in the database of the security breach.

Threats to personal information continue to mount; the latest reported risk to our personal privacy comes from companies selling cell phone records of consumers. For a significant fee, one simply needs to provide a person’s name, address, and cell phone number and can receive a record of that person’s outgoing calls for the past month. Details on several specific (online) companies and their offerings are discussed further in this Washington Post article.

While this sort of service appears to be generally illegal, companies are skirting the cell phone companies’ efforts to stymy the trade of such information. One expert interviewed by the Washington Post says that “information security by carriers to protect customer records is practically nonexistent and is routinely defeated” – a claim that carriers deny, despite the prevalence of companies advertising these services on the internet.

In Russia, a country looking to join the World Trade Organization, there is still rampant piracy of music, movies, and software. A visit to the street markets in major cities quickly reveals an incredible selection of CDs and DVDs, being sold cheaply almost regardless of their specific content. For example, when I visited Russia in 1999, all CDs cost the equivalent of US $3, whether they contained the latest band’s music or a copy of a Windows OS.

These days, however, there is a scarier deal on the market. It appears as though the information being acquired by fraud artists, hackers, and phishers is reaching the street markets, as personal information is being sold in bulk. The examples given in this Globe and Mail article include Russia’s 2003 tax return records and a mobile phone company’s subscriber list.

It appears that in our day and age, the privacy of our PII is constantly under attack by the flow of information, whether such flow was intended or not. As long as those with criminal intent are able to so easily acquire PII, the aggregation and exploitation of that information will only continue to grow.

Even being head of the Federal Trade Commission is no guarantee against identity theft. FTC chair Deborah Platt Majoras was recently notified by shoe retailer DSW that she was among 1.4 million people whose credit card numbers were in a database breached by thieves. The DSW breach, discovered in March, affected customers of 108 DSW retail stores nationwide. While the compromised data did not include social security numbers, it did include credit card numbers, checking account numbers, and drivers license numbers. A suit has been filed by Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro seeking the notification of every individual affected by the breach.

Majoras could potentially join other high-profile victims of identity theft such as Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, and Ross Perot (among others).

The epidemic of information theft, leakage, and loss continued this past weekend with the announcement by MasterCard that 40 million credit card accounts had been compromised. The breach – as always attributed to hackers first, although this may be later clarified – affected almost 14 million MasterCard accounts, with the rest belonging to Visa and other companies. The lapse in security was at a third-party processing facility (CardSystems Solutions Inc), not MasterCard itself.

The latest twist in this story, just being reported this morning, is that the third-party processing company is now admitting that they were breaking rules established by Visa and MasterCard regarding information storage. Consumer records were being stored for ‘research purposes’, according to the company’s CEO; the CEO explicitly states that “we should not have been doing that” (first reported by The New York Times). The same article also reports that CardSystems Solutions was storing the 3/4-digit verification codes that are supposed to heighten credit card security in online purchases. The presence of that information can “double or triple the black-market value of a cardholder’s account” – even more reason to question the company’s unnecessary data storage practices.

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The epidemic of stolen privacy-sensitive information, largely starting with the fraud committed against ChoicePoint that came to light this February, has spurred states to adopt disclosure measures similar to the California law that has existed since July 2003. The California law was the first of its kind in requiring companies to notify consumers if privacy-sensitive information has been lost or stolen. Many privacy advocates heralded the California law as the only reason that ChoicePoint’s fraud issues entered the public spotlight. To date, five states – Arkansas, Georgia, Montana, North Dakota, and Washington – have already passed similar laws, while two other states – Florida and Illinois – are simply awaiting the governor’s signature.

A recent article that covers this recent legislative push by states can be found here.

Network World Fusion reports that a “medical group” in San Jose California experienced a burglary in their offices in the middle of the night. Two laptops were stolen containing personal information for 185,000 patients. The patient information included social security numbers. Thanks to the California law known as SB1386, these news stories are becoming more and more common because it requires that organizations make a good faith effort at notifying people affected by identity theft.

According to the Associated Press, a thief recently stole a laptop from the University of California at Berkeley, which contains personal information about nearly 100,000 alumni, graduate students and past applicants. Information contained on the laptop includes names and Social Security numbers dating back to 1976.

Recently there were several similar security breaches reported involving loss of a large amount of personal data, including ChoicePoint Inc., a consumer data firm duped into distributing personal information about 145,000 people; Lexis-Nexis, where computer hackers obtained access to the personal information of 32,000 people; and Chico State University, where a computer hacking job exposed 59,000 people to potential identity theft.

SecurityFocus News is reporting that data for about 1.4 million Californians was put at risk due to a security breach at a computer system that contained data for California’s In-Home Supportive Services program.

It’s interesting to note that investigators are note sure whether or not the the personal information was actually extracted from the system. But California’s recently passed anti-identity theft law, SB1386, requires that all 1.4 million people whose data was on that system be notified so that they can take appropriate measures to protect their identity by calling the credit reporting agencies, etc.

Imagine, having to write a letter on your university letterhead to 1.4 million citizens of your state telling them that you were not protecting their information from theft and that an incident has occurred in which the citizen’s personal information, including social security number, has been downloaded by an unknown person.

It seems like Internet scamming is on the rise. Recently, many incidents of phishing have been observed causing loss of millions of dollars in the US. “Phishing is a scheme that uses e-mails appearing to come from a legitimate company and directing recipients to fake websites where they are asked for personal or financial information.” Consumers should only disclose personal information when they initiate a transaction themselves.
For more information please visit: 500 million dollars lost in Internet ‘phishing’ scams in US