Hello Texas. There has been another government data security loss in Texas affecting 4,900 employees by The Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services. In April, Comptroller Susan Combs, acknowledged that birthdate, driver's license numbers and Social Security numbers of as many as 3.5 million current and former state employees had been published on a publicly accessible website and remained in the public domain for as long as a year.
Personal information is being exposed or compromised daily, there have been 20 data breaches from June 1, 2011 to June 13, 2011. Some of the breaches include:
Burke County Courthouse Morganton, North Carolina, a night custodian made copies of sensitive documents pertaining to criminal cases. He then traded the documents to an outsider in exchange for drugs.
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, South Carolina, a renter discovered that an employee had taken over 20 boxes of patient information home.
University of Mary Washington (UMW), Fredericksburg, Virginia, A student discovered student data files on a departmental EagleNet site while searching the EagleNet portal for his own information.
Citibank New York, New York, Hackers have managed to access the information of approximately 1% of Citibank's 21 million users.
The VA Caribbean Healthcare System, San Juan, Puerto Rico, veterans and staff had their personal information left unsecured in an open area in the San Juan VA Medical Center.
Ravenel Elementary School, Seneca, South Carolina, A Memorial Day weekend office burglary resulted in the theft of two laptops and a flash drive which may contain student information.
Identity theft can wreak havoc on a victim's life. Identity theft is rampant, you may do your due diligence but with the losses above, who can be trusted for the safekeeping of personal information?
Credit monitoring is a start but only helps with financial identity theft and not the other common types.
Certified Identity Theft Risk Management Specialist (CITRMS)
