Indiana Data Theft Compromises 700,000
palewook writes "A Midwest collection company, Central Collection Bureau, admits a server and eight PCs stolen contain over 700,000 individuals' personal data. Central Collection Bureau acts as a collection contractor for doctors and utility companies. The Indiana based company admits the stolen info consists of addresses, social security numbers, and medical codes."
I happen to work in Indiana in IT for a retail store and my boss and I were just discussing how to avoid a "CNN event" just like this. Hopefully this article will be the tipping edge for the upper management to give us the time and resources to be able to properly secure our network... but somehow I doubt it.
I keep telling myself I'm not the desperate type.
Is it just me, or is it every week that some state has over 500k identities compromised? We may as well have a ticker that says which state this week and how many. We really need to find alternatives, otherwise by the end of the year, over half of the USA will have their identities somewhere underground...
. . . to India...na . . . oh, wait.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
At this point, it seems like just about everyone's SSN is out there in the public domain in one form or another. What pains me is that SSN is still used like a password for many institutions. Banks will ask for SSN, birthdate, and mother's maiden name. Unfortunately all of those things can be found out with a bit of digging.
The more these breaches happen, the more apparent it is that we need a better "proof of identity" mechanism. I'm not advocating for the government to pass out universal ID cards to everyone. I think I'd rather see something along the lines of SSL certificates, where business can issue identification to people and later use that number and passphrase to do business with them. Perhaps a handful of business certificates become the "gold standard" and and are accepted by other businesses as a valid identifier.
According to anonymous officials, they're calling this heist even more daring than the time he stole the Ark of the Covenant away from the Nazis.
The data on hundreds of thousands of people compromised by a stolen laptop somewhere? It must be Tuesday.
Seriously, why bother? Their credit is already trashed...
Even the non-technical companies I've worked for had enough sense to keep the servers in a locked closet.
Oh wait, this is yet another completely wrong summary...
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Your "solution" does nothing to solve the problem.
- The "trust" you place in a digital certificate is misguided and fictional. Trust is a chain, and business cannot be "trusted" any more than the least scrupulous of their employees. If you organize data like this, it will just make it easier to steal. SSL certificates are okay for encrypting data, but next to useless for identity management.
- If all were implemented as you say, this computer theft would have taken the private keys as well, rendering the certificates worse than useless.
- SSN is not the only piece of sensitive information, and is not the only piece of data that identity thieves are looking for.
Ok, all of us here at /. know how this is done, right? You too can boot to single mode.
Glad to know we're all uber-hackers now.
I mean they stole the data of 700,000 people that were on the roles at a Debt Collection company. I mean, these are people that can't pay their bills and have bad credit. How stupid is it to steal that data. "Uh...my SSN is...er...123-45-6789" "I am sorry sir, with your credit score we can't issue you a card." Sure it is still a bad thing for those people to have their info exposed, but sheesh what is next - "Thieves get data of soup kitchen patrons, bankrupt Campbells."? My suspicion is that they are too dumb to know what they have stolen. "Should we bring this flat one? It ain't got no screen or keyboard?" "Sure, I bet its a dvd player, grab it."
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
The data "thief" was heard shouting, as he rode away, "It belongs in a museum!"
Not everyone on a list has bad credit. You need to remember that in some cases outstanding medical debt does not negatively impact credit scores.
It's just that hospitals also use credit agencies to help recoup monies that people are neglecting to pay, and not always for the reasons of bad credit.
So there is a good chance that a lot of those people will have great credit.
These Criminals may not be as stupid as many of you seem to think.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
I mean they stole the data of 700,000 people that were on the roles at a Debt Collection company. I mean, these are people that can't pay their bills and have bad credit. How stupid is it to steal that data. "Uh...my SSN is...er...123-45-6789" "I am sorry sir, with your credit score we can't issue you a card." Sure it is still a bad thing for those people to have their info exposed, but sheesh what is next - "Thieves get data of soup kitchen patrons, bankrupt Campbells."? My suspicion is that they are too dumb to know what they have stolen. "Should we bring this flat one? It ain't got no screen or keyboard?" "Sure, I bet its a dvd player, grab it."
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