Posted on 04/12/2005 3:35:56 AM PDT by RWR8189
NEW YORK/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Data broker LexisNexis said Tuesday that personal information may have been stolen on 310,000 U.S. citizens, or nearly 10 times the number found in a data breach announced last month.
An investigation by the firm's Anglo-Dutch parent Reed Elsevier determined that its databases had been fraudulently breached 59 times using stolen passwords, leading to the possible theft of personal information such as addresses and Social Security numbers.
LexisNexis, which said in March that 32,000 people had been potentially affected by the breaches, will notify an additional 278,000 individuals whose data may have been stolen.
Of the initial group contacted, only 2 percent asked the company to conduct an investigation of their credit records. LexisNexis has found no cases of identity theft, such as using a stolen Social Security number to apply for a credit card.
"We need to write to them and offer the same kind of support and investigation we offered the original 32,000," a Reed Elsevier spokeswoman said.
"Of the original group, it's somewhat encouraging that none of them has suffered identity theft."
Law enforcement authorities are assisting the company's investigations, which coincide with a rash of similar break-ins at other companies handling consumer data.
STOCK 'DAMPENED'
Reed Elsevier moved to soothe investors' fears by reaffirming its earnings forecasts, saying the financial implications of the breach were expected to be manageable within the context of LexisNexis's overall growth.
Its shares were down about 1 percent in London and Amsterdam at 0955 GMT.
"The news dropped into a thin market so that dampens the stock. But the firm reiterated its targets and seems to have things under control, so we don't expect big consequences," asset manager Lex Werkheim at Dutch broker Eureffect said.
The breach, uncovered after a billing complaint by a customer at LexisNexis's Seisint unit, led to the discovery of an identity and password that had been misappropriated.
The information accessed included names, addresses, Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers, but not credit histories, medical records or financial information, LexisNexis said.
Seisint, based in Boca Raton, Florida, uses property records and other public data to build profiles on millions of U.S. consumers, which it sells to law-enforcement agencies and financial institutions. (Additional reporting by Adam Pasick in London)
Oh, swell.
Check Sandy's pants and Hillary's table.
It seems to me that the information was taken with legal passwords--by unscrupulous people. I think they'd better find the people who got the data and go after them. Of course, then L-N should tighten up their procedures to make sure the right people are using the passwords.
If you think this is a breach of confidential data - wait until you get a peek behind the curtain of what is happening to the medical, insurance, financial, etc data collection and processing that has been outsourced to the 3rd world! This will look like a minor break-in at the local Dairy Queen.
My position at LN was 'outsourced' last year (QA Tester) - along with a lot of other experienced folks.
I can't help but wonder how much that cutback contributed to this problem.
As long as corporations care only about their bottom line (and that is driven by the investors), these problems will continue to occur.
Uh-oh. I've got an account there. :-(
I find it odd that people are not outraged that so much information is collected and SOLD for profit on private individuals. Talk about Big Brother, Maybe this is Uncle Stan, the shady private practice relative of Uncle Sam.
We all were told as school childen about "our permanent record", it really does exist. What a bottomfeeder industry.
The safest way to eliminate such identity theft is to eliminate such datafiles.
I remember when they first said this breach had happened and provided an estimate, I thought "times 10!". Looks like I was right. And they were even more wrong than they wanted to admit.
END THE MATRIX
I don't care if it was "compromised" or not. I don't like the idea of people selling my Social Security number, let alone other details (which at times are WRONG).
If they want details, they should ASK ME for them.
Perhaps the law should be changed to make LN and the others financially responsible for any and all costs incurred by the person whose credit info has been stolen.
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