The Top 10 Data Breaches (part 2)
Written on February 15, 2008 by Jerson
5. Swedish Urology Group — Urine Trouble!
Victims: “Hundreds”
Class Action Outrage Scale: 1 out of 10 lawyers
Doctors lost three hard drives containing patients’ personal information, and we mean personal!
4. The Nature Conservancy — Think of It as Recycled Data
Victims: 14,000
Class Action Outrage Scale: 9 out of 10 lawyers
Someone at the Conservancy was thinking locally but acting globally by apparently visiting a website of questionable provenance. The site was poisoned with malware. Soon, malicious hackers were clear-cutting names, home addresses, birthdates, Social Security numbers of employees and their dependents, and, yes, direct deposit bank account numbers. Let’s hope there’s been a climate change in the group’s security department.
3. TSA, Part II – Still Doing DHS Proud!
Victims: 100,000
Class Action Outrage Scale: 3 out of 10 lawyers
Thieves stole a computer hard drive with the names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and bank account and routing information of current and former employees, including federal air marshals. Don’t worry, though. How easy could it be to pose as an air marshal with only that information?
2. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs — One Regrets the Error
Victims: 25 million
Class Action Outrage Scale: 10 out of 10 lawyers
Two CDs containing personal data on about 7 million families went missing in the mail, and the HMRC chancellor resigned. Frankly, we included it just so we could quote sentences like: “The chancellor seeks the advice of the Serious Organised Crime Agency,” and “Mr Cable said he sincerely hoped the discs would not fall into the hands of ‘the criminal fraternity,’” and “Police have visited London rubbish tips in their hunt for missing computer discs.” Makes the worst breach in Britain’s history sound kind of lovely.
1. TJX — ’Sorry About That. Here’s a Gift Card. Come Back Soon for our Sale!’
Victims: Millions of bargain shoppers worldwide
Class Action Outrage Scale: 8 out of 10 lawyers
No breach got more ink this year than TJX’s, which involved some, OK, tens of millions, OK, 50 million, all right all right around 100 million credit and debit card records. Priceless moments included TJX’s defense in press accounts that “our security was comparable to many other major retailers” and the portion of TJX’s proposed settlement with consumers in which the company would hold a three-day “Customer Appreciation Sale” and give some customers $30 store vouchers. (Sorry about the e. coli in the meat in our store; here’s a gift card to buy more meat in our store). After consumer advocates raised a stink, the vouchers were changed to $15 checks. Sad as the whole episode was for consumers, TJX’s stock has remained healthy. Don’t you just love a bargain?
via [CSOOnline]
If you enjoyed this post you might want to subscribe to our RSS Feed!
- 
- 
- 
- 
Take a look to these similar posts!
Fatal error: Call to undefined function similar_posts() in /home/spm015/public_html/websecurity101/wp-content/themes/Parmarossa1.0/single.php on line 17