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That exposed the names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers of about 2,000 of the firm’s clients, including a number of high-powered lawyers and Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer…
“To me, this was devastating,” said Phylyp Wagner, founder of the investment firm. “I didn’t even know what peer-to-peer was. I do now.”
Wagner said his company has contracted with FirstAdvantage of Poway, Calif., which last week sent out letters notifying affected clients of the breach and offering each six months of free credit-report monitoring. He emphasized that the peer-to-peer disclosure never endangered his clients’ financial records, which are stored by a separate company. But that may be small consolation to several lawyers on the list who said they recently experienced unexplained financial activity.
“This may explain why two weeks ago I got a $9,000 cellphone bill from AT&T,” said Steven Agresta, a partner with the law firm Alston & Bird. Someone had opened a phone account using his date of birth and Social Security number, but with a different address.
Probably half of corporate security breaches result from user-installed software. Drives IT managers up a tree!
No problem with that, after his vote in Kelo vs New London to let government take people’s property to hand over to a developer. I wish the move to seize his house in New Hampshire had worked.
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And IT managers become the bad guys from fellow employees for cracking down on stuff like this too! Until, that is, someone screws up royally like this situation, then the IT manager gets the heat for not being vigilant enough in enforcing strict security measures. Can you tell I’ve been there, done that before?
If somebody isn’t job hunting they ought to be.
The solution to all this isn’t that hard. All the companies have to do is use public directories to locate the applicant and ask them to confirm their request.
Get someone from India to do it. It’s not that hard.
#1. Hear Hear !!!!
Bring on the greedy lawyers.
The thousands of victims of these bone-headed companies need to sue in a class action suit for a bazillion dollars.
Maybe then they’d start taking privacy seriously.
Congress needs to fix this but can’t until we vote the obstructionist Republicans out of office.
In Europe this dope would be in jail. America’s privacy laws are way to lax.
Eideard commented: “Probably half of corporate security breaches result from user-installed software.” I think the number may be even higher.
I begin to have a clue as to why IT managers have such low opinions of their users…