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Unencrypted Lost Tape Affects 230 Retailers
Lucas123 tells us that a backup tape lost by Iron Mountain reportedly contains credit card information from 650,000 customers. The unencrypted tape also holds Social Security numbers for 150,000 customers. Quoting the Computerworld Article:
"Although J.C. Penney was the only company that Jones would confirm as affected by the missing tape, that retailer accounts for just a small percentage of all accounts that were compromised. In total, 230 retailers are affected by the breach. 'Clearly that number includes many of the national retail organizations,' he said."
The problem with encryption is that the news agencies still don't report it to make people feel that bit safer.
When one of our high-street banks in the UK lost details of quite a large number of customers' details then none of the major news agencies I saw reported that it was encrypted. It was all "bank loses details", "customers at risk", "think of the bank details (and children)!". It took a bit of digging to find out that company policy was that hard disks were encrypted and that this one apparently was as well.
Okay, so I'm British and don't know how the American system works (only visited once) but social security numbers? What were people buying such that they were customers on this tape and had their SS# recorded? As close as we get is our National Insurance number (for benefits and pension contributions) and I've never known of anyone other than an employer who needs to know it.