Slashdot Mirror
Identity Theft of Many SAIC Employees
Rick Zeman writes "In the wake of the Geoge Mason University identity theft comes another: SAIC, an employee-owned company, has had a break-in which '...netted computers containing the Social Security numbers and other personal information about tens of thousands of past and present company employees.' These employees include anyone who's owned SAIC stock, and since it's an employee-owned company, that's most of them, including 'some of the nation's most influential former military and intelligence officials.'"
One of my parents may have had their identity stolen in this incident. I sure hope not, but in any case... what now? What can be done to prevent the stolen numbers from being used illegitimately?
"We are the Dyslexia of Borg. Your ass will be laminated. Futility is resistant."
So am I crazy, or shoudl these desktop machines not even be HOLDING this kind of data? Sensitive information (all business-related data in my opinion) belongs on the server, not on individual machiens. The server belongs in a secured, protected space. You should be able to lose all of your "personal" computers and only have the inconvenience of setting up new computers for those users. I would say that loss is the fault of poor IT practices.
Time is the quality of nature that keeps events from happening all at once. Lately it doesn't seem to be working. -Anon
They better start taking a good close look at their own...
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Notice the irony:
"The contractor, employee-owned Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego, handles sensitive government contracts, including many in information security."
Are we sure it's only the personal data that was compromised? One would be more worried about what *else* was uncovered by whoever-did-this.
"Ben Haddad, an SAIC spokesman, said yesterday that the Jan. 25 theft, which the company announced last week, occurred in an administrative building where no sensitive contracting work is performed."
Or is it the case that break-in was *detected* only in one of the buildings? They had to smash windows of the administrative building, to get the keys of the others?
'some of the nation's most influential former military and intelligence officials.'
Maybe this is just the thing we need to make people get serious about privacy.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
There is only one reason by law a company can have your SSN#, and that is for paying taxes. If your relationship with the organization does not include paying taxes, then refuse to give them your SSN#. If they deny services, you can sue, it is illegal for them to force you to give them your SSN#.
Could you give some sources? I don't believe that your statement is generally true. It's true that there are only a few cases where you are required by law to give out your SSN (the N stands for Number, by the way--a SSN# is like an ATM Machine). However, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's illegal for other companies to ask for your SSN, or refuse you service if you don't give it out. All the sources I can find (this one for example) say that in most cases the most you can do is take your business elsewhere. Some states have laws preventing refusal of service in specific cases (such as utilities), but in general you have no recourse but to complain and/or go elsewhere.
Before people take your advice and start threatening to sue everyone for violating a law, they should make sure the law actually exists where they are and applies to their situation--otherwise they'll just end up looking looking silly. Besides, it's always much more effective to be able to quote a specific law a company is breaking instead of just making vague claims of illegality.
I won't go into details, but I will say my experiences with the company were very disappointing. One of the supposed benefits of working for an employee owned company is opportunity for mobility within the company if the project or contract a person is working on does not get picked up again. Not exactly what I saw. There was no perceived benefit to being an employee going for a position vs. being someone off the street.
I was surprised about some of the things in the article, and that problems with SAIC contracts are a lot more widespread than what I thought.
IMO, if the founder saw what his creation had become, he'd be livid. I really believe the founder started things with the right idea and concept, things just haven't stayed with his vision.
I used to work for SAIC and I have to hear about this on /. almost 3 weeks after the fact.
I've already googled what I need to do. I was disappointed with SAIC as a company, but they were reasonably generous back when I worked for them. Oh well.
As a SAIC employee this just blows. I had to put a ID theft warning on my credit. This story took a long to come out! This took place weeks ago and we where warned about this over 2 weeks ago! hehe