State Farm customers in Surprise, Arizona were potential victims of an identity theft incident earlier this summer. In August, State Farm insurance had to notify over 40 state officials of the information breach involving the social security numbers, driver license numbers, addresses and financial accounts of several undisclosed agency clients. It is reported that the company has been having problems with several breaches in the past few months. The company has also had a problem with online employment applicants having their information exposed. This particular incident details that an agent of one branch office, was using the confidential information to open new credit card accounts. The number of those affected was not revealed, however, the police department in Surpise, Arizona have begun to investigate this breach. It has been reported that everyone affected has been contacted. They are being offered one year free credit monitoring by Trans Union.
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August was a huge month for large data breaches. Take, for instance, The Princeton Review. They are a test-prep firm that unknowingly posted tens of thousands of test scores on their web site for about seven weeks. The breach was discovered by another test-prep company that just happened to see that data online while doing research. The web site address that was providing the data was reported to the New York Times, which in turn, informed the Princeton Review. Access to that portion of the web site was then promptly removed. Personal information exposed included names and birth dates. This information was posted with the intention of protection by password, however, the password mechanism somehow failed when the company changed internet providers. An investigation is being run to attempt to find out how many people might have accessed those files.
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This one is an older story from 2007, however, it highlights the vulnerability of even those in high positions and who hold high accountability. This one also comes from the state of Ohio and affected all state employees. The state Governor was also affected. This breach was the result of the theft of a back-up tape that was in the possession of one of the state office interns.
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I have a while to go before I can even think about retiring, but it must be an exciting day when the last day you will ever have to work for someone else rolls around. I would imagine that for those who really enjoy their career, they take one last, long hard look at their office and have a few “last” conversations with their coworkers before leaving. Of course, cleaning out desk drawers and collecting family pictures that decorate the office are part of that last day. How about, oh, emailing a huge file containing the personal data of current and former employees, just in case?
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LifeLock offers several services for a minimal fee and all of them lead to helping to stop identity theft.

Reduce junk mail/credit card offers: many of us want this anyway and have never taken the time to find out how to get off of those pesky lists where they offer you pre-approved credit cards. These are more dangerous now than ever. With so many identity thieves out there, committing a crime is as easy as checking their neighbor’s mailbox!
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One reason why you should be sure that you have protected your identity, is explained in the following story. This shows how easy it is for someone to access information about you online, without your knowledge.
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We have reported many different instances of identity theft and exposure of personal information. Everything from stealing a laptop to downloading wireless transactions at retailers. Copying credit cards on personal machines to hacking into office computers.

And yet, here is one we did not see coming. (more…)

Do you work for a brokerage firm? If it is Merrill Lynch, you might have been one of 33,000 employees that CNBC reported as having had personal information stolen from the company in August of last year. Those who were affected have been notified, however, have they been closely watching their credit report for the past year? Did they receive complimentary credit monitoring service or enroll in a protection service? Apparently. the data was stolen from a corporate office in New Jersey. Those affected should keep in mind that even with the passing of time, the data is still compromised.

For those of you who might be clients of this company, this incident did not include the personal information of any of the firm’s clients. At least, not that was reported. However, it won’t hurt to take a look at your credit report to be sure that you are safe as well.
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Now you would think that those who receive welfare would be safe from data breaches, since their data is kept by government offices. Not the case in Pennsylvania, though. This incident was not even the target of identity thieves, it was just a huge error on the part of a machine!
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Many websites on the internet offer advice on how to react once your identity has been stolen. This advice is much needed with the rise of identity theft taking place, however, the advice offered would be even more valuable if you already had it taken care of by your own identity theft service.
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