Posted on 06/08/2005 2:22:59 PM PDT by softengine
The retail finance division of Citigroup has admitted that a backup tape containing personal information on almost 4 million customers has gone missing. The United Parcel Service lost the tape on May 2nd, and it hasn't been seen since. CitiFinancial only noticed the tape was missing on May 20. The tape contains Social Security numbers and transaction histories on both open and closed accounts at the bank’s lending branches.
Citigroup says it has no reason to believe the tape has been stolen, but alarmingly, the tape hasn't shown up at any UPS depot despite six weeks of searching.
The company admitted that it doesn't use encryption on its electronic transmissions, nor explained why it took so long to notify the public.
Earlier this year a backup tape belonging to Ameritrade went astray, with personal information on 200,000 customers; Time Warner lost a tape containing information on 600,000 individuals, and Bank of America and Wachovia suffered a data breach affecting 100,000 customers each in May.
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All together now folks - Holy Sh.......
That is flat out stupid. Granted the encrypion built into most backup software is week, but not using it is unacceptable for a financial institution.
Whoa.
If you knew some of the stuff that I have seen about the data that banks have sent through UPS without encryption or security safeguards or even checking out where they are sending it, you'd drop a cinder block.
Did they ever stop to think to use UPS package tracking? My guess is at this point, the tape is stolen.
Does anybody ever get fired over this? Geez, this is data security 101.
I'll bet some high-ranking CEO got promoted over this fiasco.
Pachage tracking, who'd have thunk... Lol.
You wouldn't encrypt a backup... but then wouldn't/shouldn't ship your off-site backup tape via UPS so it could get lost
Well, people like me who depend on UPS in the future will "benefit" from the higher shipping fees amid lawsuits from angry Citibank customers. You just know lawsuits are in the pipe.
Aaaaaarrrrgh!
Citibank is *my* bank!
But then, everybody already knows that by now....
I got a friend in Mississippi who repairs and fixes bank teller machines. He said the ones he works on use OS/2 Warp.
Agreed. I've worked at several banks and the backups weren't encrypted. But the tapes were hand-couriered to and from the "iron mountain" offsite storage and checked in/checked out on both ends. We never sent them via common carrier!
Speaking of bank screwups, a very large bank who shall remain nameless keeps sending me CDs of customer data for the wrong company. I've told them repeatedly to cease and desist but it happens 2 or 3 times a year.
LQ
All together now folks - Holy Sh.......]
What part about 'security' do these folks not understand?
Who are these people, really?
They should have sent it regular US Mail. The credit card bill they send me every month never fails to get here. NEVER,NEVER,NEVER.
LOL. . .but no laughing matter, of course.
on tape??? tape???
not encrypted???
sent by UPS???
How can these people be so stupid???
Not only should people be fired, the whole division should be shut down for incompetence. If laws were broken, they should be prosecuted to the max. This is unbelievable.
Then promptly has his identity stolen if there's any justice.
_______________________ you-are-scrd
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