Such companies as Aetna (AET) and Boeing (BA) have contributed to the staggering 100,152,801 stolen or leaked data records as of today, according to
this NYTimes.com article and Kevin Poulsen's, senior editor for Wired News, blog.
Educational institutions seem to be even bigger culprits with U.C.L.A. announcing 800,000 records breached compared to Aetna's 130,000 and Boeing's 382,000, which was stored on an employee's laptop stolen from his car. In fact, bastions of higher learning were twice as likely to report suffering a breach as any other type of entity. They are number one ahead of government, general businesses, financial service and healthcare companies.
The discovery of hackers breaching the restricted database at University of California, Los Angeles wasn't found out for over a year. The information contained names, addresses, Social Security numbers and other private information of current and former students and faculty.
The following comment was left on the blog:
“I was a U.C.L.A. student that got my info lifted. I think it’s horrible not only that these companies are so sloppy and careless about our data but that we have such a weak link in the chain of our security. Congress has let companies use SSN in ways they were never meant to be used and now we are paying the price for it. Add a debt-happy culture to the mix and you have a truly toxic brew of misery if someone gets a hold of your SSN.”
Sadly the 100 million mark doesn't represent the breaches made before such fiascos as ChoicePoint (CPS) where bogus accounts were established by ID thieves numbering 163,000. ChoicePoint made news of the breach public Feb. 15, 2005 and settled for $10 million in civil penalties and $5 million for consumer redress.
Go to this web site,www.privacyrights.org, to get a chronological listing of all such breaches of data since ChoicePoint.
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