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Indiana Data Theft Compromises 700,000

Posted by timothy on from the can't-the-thieves-just-trade-among-themselves dept.

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."

5 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Well this is a well timed article by Durrok · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Well this is a well timed article by Ironsides · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Have HR tell tell you what the fines are for a HIPAA violation. Then have them tell you what is covered under HIPAA. I'm pretty sure at least some of your computers contain HIPAA protected information. Then arrange a presentation with Upper Management.

      --
      Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
  2. State-wide data theft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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...

    1. Re:State-wide data theft by pclminion · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That would be awesome. Finally everybody would be forced to abandon the SSN as a unique ID and move to a system that isn't completely fucked.

    2. Re:State-wide data theft by WaltBusterkeys · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Economists would call this a a classic "externalities" problem. It costs a company next to nothing to store vast amounts of data about you, but they don't pay the cost when your data gets spread around.

      Right now, there's no reason why a company (or a state government) wouldn't keep as much data about you as it can. Hard drive space is all but free (especially relative to these types of transactional data) and big database engines can rapidly sort through the data when it's needed.

      But, the problem is that you personally pay the price when a thief takes off with your name, address, social security number, mother maiden's name, etc. You are the one who has to go and call your credit card companies and pay people to remove your name from databases to clean up the mess.

      I'm no fan of government regulation generally, but this seems to be the sort of problem that there's no easy market solution for. I'm quite sure that companies (and governments) would be a lot more careful with personal data if they had to personally call each victim's credit card companies and personally investigate every claim of identity theft. We probably don't need to go that far, but it makes the point.