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Newspapers Wrapped in Credit Card Data
Buzzy's Roast Beef writes "The Boston Globe reports that bundles of newspapers in Worcester, MA were distributed wrapped in paper which contained subscriber credit card information for 240,000 customers. Those of you paying by check needn't worry; account and routing details for 1,100 customers paying by check were also given out like candy." From the article: "Larkin said the newspapers were first notified of the security breach on Monday by a clerk at a Cumberland Farms store. It took until late Monday for officials to confirm the data on the back of the paper were credit and debit card numbers. Senior management learned of the security breach yesterday morning, Larkin said. The company put out a news release late yesterday afternoon."
It should be a no brainer that financial information (not just credit cards) can only be access by the finance department, and any waste paper in the finance department must be disposed of by professional data destruction companies.
The article explained the mistakes, which were caused by aborted print jobs, only those printed documents were in the bin for recycling!
At least the the newspapers have now added a safeguard to the computer system so only the last four numbers of credit and debit cards can be printed.
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Why does these data need to be printed at all? What possible need is there to see these numbers on paper?