Saturday, June 24, 2006

Hacker Enters Agriculture Dept. Computers + More!

Via Yahoo News -

WASHINGTON - A hacker broke into the Agriculture Department's computer system and may have obtained names, Social Security numbers and photos of 26,000 Washington-area employees and contractors, the department said Wednesday.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said the department will provide free credit monitoring for one year to anyone who might have been affected.

Spokeswoman Terri Teuber said Thursday: "Protecting the privacy of our employees is a top priority for us, and to that end, we're conducting a thorough review through the entire department of 110,000 people to ensure the systems that contain private data are as protected as possible."

The break-in happened during the first weekend in June, the department said. Technology staff learned of the breach on June 5 and told Johanns the following day but believed personal information was protected by security software, the department said.


------------------------------------------------

It also appears the FTC lost a couple of computers on June 22nd as well. Two laptop computers containing personal and financial data were stolen from an employee's vehicle. The data included names, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and in some instances, financial account numbers gathered in law enforcement investigations.

So one person lost two laptops?? And what happen to this man / woman? You will never hear that...

On a personal note, I finally got my Texas Guaranteed letter in the mail. I get free 60 day credit watch..YEAH!! lol

See all the other fun data lose incidents since ChoicePoint in 2005.

No comments:

Post a Comment