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Be careful what information you give to recruiters!

Insurance company Aetna has contacted 65,000 current and former employees whose Social Security numbers (SSNs) may have been compromised in a Web site data breach. The job application Web site also held names, phone numbers, e-mail and mailing addresses for up to 450,000 applicants, Aetna spokeswoman Cynthia Michener said. SSNs for those people were not stored on the site, which was maintained by an external vendor. The company found out about the breach earlier this month when people began receiving spam messages that appeared to come from Aetna and complained to the company, Michener said. The spam purported to be a response to a job inquiry and requested more personal information. The spam campaign showed the intruders successfully harvested e-mail addresses from the Web site, although Michener said it's not clear if SSNs were also obtained. Nonetheless, Aetna sent letters last week notifying the 65,000 people whose SSNs were on the site of the breach. The company is offering them one year of free credit monitoring, as SSNs are often used by identity thieves. "We wanted to err on the side of caution," Michener said. Aetna hired an IT forensics company to investigate how the Web site had been compromised. "At this point despite a thorough review, they've not been able to pinpoint the precise breach," Michener said. Aetna posted alerts on the job site, its main Web site and its internal intranet about the spam campaign, Michener said.

The Nature of the Problem Identity theft has been referred to by some as the crime of the new millennium. It can be accomplished anonymously, easily, with a variety of means, and the impact upon the victim can be devastating. Identity theft is simply the theft of identity information such as a name, date of birth, Social Security number (SSN), or a credit card number. The mundane activities of a typical consumer during the course of a regular day may provide tremendous opportunities for an identity thief: purchasing gasoline, meals, clothes, or tickets to an athletic event; renting a car, a video, or home-improvement tools; purchasing gifts or trading stock on-line; receiving mail; or taking out the garbage or recycling. Any activity in which identity information is shared or made available to others creates an opportunity for identity theft. It is estimated that identity theft has become the fastest-growing financial crime in America and perhaps the fastest-growing crime of any kind in our society. Identity Theft: Is There Another You?: Joint hearing before the House Subcomms. on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection, and on Finance and Hazardous Materials, of the Comm. on Commerce, 106th Cong. 16 (1999) (testimony of Rep. John B. Shadegg). The illegal use of identity information has increased exponentially in recent years. In fiscal year 1999 alone, the Social Security Administration (SSA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) Fraud Hotline received approximately 62,000 allegations involving SSN misuse. The widespread use of SSNs as identifiers has reduced their security and increased the likelihood that they will be the object of identity theft. The expansion and popularity of the Internet to effect commercial transactions has increased the opportunities to commit crimes involving identity theft. The expansion and popularity of the Internet to post official information for the benefit of citizens and customers has also increased opportunities to obtain

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The Oklahoma Department of Human Services (DHS) is notifying more than one million state residents that their personal data was stored on an unencrypted laptop that was stolen from an agency employee. The computer file contained the names, Social Security numbers, birth dates and home addresses of Oklahoma's Human Services' clients receiving benefits from programs such as Medicaid, child care assistance, nutrition aid and disability benefits, the agency announced Thursday. The computer, which was stolen when a thief broke into the car April 3 after the employee stopped on her way home from work, was password protected, and officials do not believe the burglar realized what he or she was stealing. Therefore, the risk of the data being accessed is minimal, according to the agency. "We feel this was not a situation where someone was targeting the agency or that information," DHS spokeswoman Mary Leaver told SCMagazineUS.com on Friday. "We feel it was random." Leaver said the state Office of Inspector General is conducting an investigation, out of which likely will come a mandatory review of information security policies. However, it is not believed the employee violated existing policy when the incident occurred, she said. News of the theft comes one day after the Ponemon Institute, in conjunction with Intel, released a study that found the average value of a lost laptop is $49,246. About 80 percent of the cost is related to the chance that a breach could occur, the study showed.

Consumers, who become victims of identity theft through access to public records, do not have a clue as to how they became a victim. They cannot know unless the fraudster who "legally accessed" the public information is caught and confesses that they used or sold the information for identity theft. Most often end users of stolen identities are caught, not the kingpins. Illegal immigrants who purchase identities on the street sometimes for hundreds of dollars do not know the source. * What can an identity thief do with a name and SSN? Here is a short list. * Make a fake Social Security Card (see image below) * Make a fake Medicare Card and get medical treatment and Medicare benefits * Use the fake Social Security Card to get a driver's license or passport * Get a job and government benefits. * Get credit and open new financial accounts * Get housing, utilities and phone service * Get insurance * Thieves use fake ID to elude law enforcement by pretending they are you.

"It's the easiest way for a bad guy to pretend to be you." So why are banks still using SSNs as a major form of customer identification?

On June 25, 2011, the Social Security Administration (SSA) will began assigning random Social Security Numbers (SSN). The current numbering process had been in place since it was created in 1936.

"UC San Francisco said late Tuesday it has alerted 600 patients and others that an external hacker may have obtained "temporary access to emails containing their personal information" as a result of a late September phishing scam. The breach occurred about three months ago, and was investigated in mid-October, but wasn't disclosed to the public until Dec. 15. Corinna Kaarlela, UCSF's news director, told the San Francisco Business Times late Tuesday that individuals whose data may have been compromised were notified between Oct. 21, when an in-depth investigation began, and Dec. 11, when it was completed. UCSF said Tuesday that an unnamed faculty physician in the School of Medicine was victimized in late September by the alleged scam. The physician provided a user name and password in response to an email message fabricated by a hacker, that appeared as if it came from those responsible for upgrading security on UCSF internal computer servers. UCSF's Enterprise Information Security unit subsequently identified the breach and disabled the compromised password. UCSF says it conducted an investigation and in mid-October determined that emails in the physician's account ─ including some containing demographic and clinical information and, in a few cases, Social Security numbers ─ may have been exposed."

Parents of 18,541 Metro Nashville students will receive letters next week outlining a security breach that put their children's Social Security numbers online for three months. Advertisement Boston-based Public Consulting Group Inc., which holds a five-year, $2.6-million-a-year contract with the state to collect student data from various districts, corrected the error March 31 after a parent using Google to search her daughter's name found it - along with personal data for the students and 6,000 parent names. Art Staehling learned Wednesday that his teenage daughter was on the list and said he's concerned what could happen to her identity. "I find it hard to believe that an established company had a problem of this magnitude," Staehling said. The consulting group will pay for parents of affected children to check all family members' credit reports through Experian and for a year of monitoring. One of the group's owners, Stephen Skinner, said the error happened when workers running a test Dec. 28 on random student data inadvertently stored a file to an insecure directory. They discovered the error March 5 and took down the file, which contained student names, gender, race or ethnicity, date of birth, Social Security number and, in some cases, parent names. But they were unaware Google's search engine had already found the file and indexed it. That's how the parent, who is also a Metro schools employee, found out about the breach weeks later. Public Consulting Group worked with Google to take the information down.

With identity theft on the upswing, Aram Langhans thought he was simply being prudent when he asked the Yakima Heart Center to remove his Social Security number from its files. "They had my insurance card and my driver's license. What else did they need?" said Langhans, a retired public school teacher insured by Group Health. Langhans said he was initially hooked up to a portable heart monitor that he was to wear for 24 hours, but the disagreement over his Social Security number prompted upper-level personnel to change their minds. He said moments after the device was attached, he was sent to a restroom to remove it and turned away. Shawnie Haas, administrator of the Heart Center, an independent outpatient group practice, declined to discuss the incident. But she said in an e-mail statement that the practice protects patients' privacy. "The Yakima Heart Center is careful to collect data pertinent to ensuring accuracy of our patient's medical record. Routine information collected for all patients includes name, address, date of birth, Social Security number, gender, and other specific information that helps us verify that individual's identity and insurance enrollment or coverage data. We are careful to maintain confidentiality of all patient information in our system." According to state and federal regulators, private insurance companies have moved away from using Social Security numbers for patient identification. But health-care providers in the Yakima Valley say they routinely collect them as "backup" in the event that patients' insurance doesn't pay the claim.

Hackers, possibly from Asia, have stolen about a decade's worth of personal information on current and former UC-Berkeley students, the university announced Friday. The breaches involved records dating to 1999 at the school's health center that included Social Security numbers, health insurance information, immunization history and the names of treating physicians. No other treatment-related records were stolen, the university said, although self-reported medical histories of students who studied abroad were hacked. The school on Friday sent e-mails and letters to 160,000 people, including about 3,400 Mills College students who used or were eligible for University of California-Berkeley medical services. About 97,000 people are most at risk because their names and Social Security numbers could be connected by the hackers, said Steve Lustig, the university's associate vice chancellor for health and human services. "What's been taken is bits of data that the thief might put together into an identity," he said. The university traced the hackers back to Asia, possibly China, but the exact origin could not be pinpointed. UC and FBI investigators are probing the breaches, which apparently occurred over several months. An FBI spokesman said the agency was informed of the hacking immediately, but declined to provide more information. The thefts were discovered about a month ago, but system administrators did Advertisement not realize the breadth of the attack until April 21. The hackers disguised their work as routine operations and then left taunting messages for UC-Berkeley employees, said Shelton Waggener, the university's associate vice chancellor for information technology. The thieves accessed the information through the university Web site, he said. "You should think of it as a public building," Waggener said. "They got into the building properly, but then they broke into secure areas." Administrators at Mills College, which contracts with UC-Berkeley for

The state's highest court told Bergen County yesterday to release 8 million pages of real estate documents -- including mortgage information -- to fulfill a request filed under the state's public records law, but that Social Security numbers included in them must be kept private. The justices also said the company requesting the information should pay the $460,000 it will cost the county to remove the Social Security numbers from records spanning more than two decades. The court unanimously agreed that the documents, requested by a business that wants to sell electronic access to this information, are public records under the state's Open Public Records Act. But it stressed some of the personal information, if released, would hurt residents. "The request was made on behalf of a commercial business planning to catalogue and sell the information by way of an easy-to-search computerized database. Were that to occur, an untold number of citizens would face an increased risk of identity theft," Chief Justice Stuart Rabner wrote for the court. Bergen County officials called the decision a victory for all New Jersey residents concerned about identity theft.

Never mind landing the job. Now people on the lookout for employment have another cause for worry: identity theft. As the joblessness rate soars, scammers are ginning up fake Web sites or posing as recruiters to trick job seekers into giving up sensitive personal information. Corneilus Allison became a potential target after he applied for a position at Aetna (AET) in January, court documents show. In hopes of securing a position at the insurer, he entered required personal information into Aetna's job Web site. In May he received a response-but it wasn't an offer of employment. Aetna instead told him that his personal information, including his Social Security number, might have been compromised. Hackers had found their way into Aetna's job application site, managed by an outside vendor, nabbed e-mail addresses of job seekers, and sent correspondence as if from Aetna asking for additional personal information.

The nation's Social Security numbering system has left millions of citizens vulnerable to privacy breaches, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, who for the first time have used statistical techniques to predict Social Security numbers solely from an individual's date and location of birth.

The loss of personally identifiable information, such as an individual's Social Security number, name, and date of birth can result in serious harm, including identity theft. Identity theft is a serious crime that impacts millions of individuals each year. Identity theft occurs when such information is used without authorization to commit fraud or other crimes. While progress has been made protecting personally identifiable information in the public and private sectors, challenges remain. GAO was asked to testify on how the loss of personally identifiable information contributes to identity theft. This testimony summarizes (1) the problem of identity theft; (2) steps taken at the federal, state, and local level to prevent potential identity theft; and (3) vulnerabilities that remain to protecting personally identifiable information, including in federal information systems. For this testimony, GAO relied primarily on information from prior reports and testimonies that address public and private sector use of personally identifiable information, as well as federal, state, and local efforts to protect the security of such information. GAO and agency inspectors general have made numerous recommendations to agencies to resolve prior significant information control deficiencies and information security program shortfalls. The effective implementation of these recommendations will continue to strengthen the security posture at these agencies. Identity theft is a serious problem because, among other things, it can take a long period of time before a victim becomes aware that the crime has taken place and thus can cause substantial harm to the victim's credit rating. Moreover, while some identity theft victims can resolve their problems quickly, others face substantial costs and inconvenience repairing damage to their credit records. Some individuals have lost job opportunities, been refused loans, or even been arrested for crimes they did not commit as a result of identit

The loss of personally identifiable information, such as an individual's Social Security number, name, and date of birth can result in serious harm, including identity theft. Identity theft is a serious crime that impacts millions of individuals each year. Identity theft occurs when such information is used without authorization to commit fraud or other crimes. While progress has been made protecting personally identifiable information in the public and private sectors, challenges remain. GAO was asked to testify on how the loss of personally identifiable information contributes to identity theft. This testimony summarizes (1) the problem of identity theft; (2) steps taken at the federal, state, and local level to prevent potential identity theft; and (3) vulnerabilities that remain to protecting personally identifiable information, including in federal information systems. For this testimony, GAO relied primarily on information from prior reports and testimonies that address public and private sector use of personally identifiable information, as well as federal, state, and local efforts to protect the security of such information. GAO and agency inspectors general have made numerous recommendations to agencies to resolve prior significant information control deficiencies and information security program shortfalls. The effective implementation of these recommendations will continue to strengthen the security posture at these agencies. Identity theft is a serious problem because, among other things, it can take a long period of time before a victim becomes aware that the crime has taken place and thus can cause substantial harm to the victim's credit rating. Moreover, while some identity theft victims can resolve their problems quickly, others face substantial costs and inconvenience repairing damage to their credit records. Some individuals have lost job opportunities, been refused loans, or even been arrested for crimes they did not commit as a result of identit

Consumers face a greater risk of losing control of their data when doing business with smaller retailers, as many haven't made investments to comply with the Payment Card Industry's Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), according to a new survey. The survey, which covered 560 U.S. and multinational organizations, asked respondents a variety of questions about their investments and deployment of technology to comply with PCI DSS, which was introduced in 2005. It's an industry standard created by major credit card companies that's designed to protect customer payment data. The survey found that 55 percent of organizations only secured credit card information but not other data such as Social Security and driver's license numbers or bank account details. Also, only 28 percent of smaller companies between 501 to 1,000 employees comply with PCI DSS. That compares with more than 70 percent of large merchants with 75,000 or more employees that claimed they're compliant.