According to their website, in March of this year, online retailer Batteries.com learned of a hacker that had access to their customer records. A customer reported to them that there was unauthorized activity regarding a credit account and the company launched an investigation. Records that were potentially accessible were names, addresses and credit card information. (more…)

Social media has been the hottest trend on the internet. With new social networking websites coming along at every turn, it’s hard to keep up with the latest networking trend. Some really hot websites that we hear about often are: Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. (more…)

A news radio station in Chicago, IL has reported that the personal information of over 60,000 people has been stolen. A laptop computer that contains this information was stolen from an employee of a company that handles billing for the Chicago Fire Department ambulance transportation service. The revenue department in Chicago has noted that anyone who has been transported via one of the city’s fire department ambulances, should be concerned about this theft.
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Comcast customers need to be aware of a recently reported data breach that has exposed  the usernames and passwords of several Comcast customers the file sharing website, Scribd on Monday.

The original number affected that Comcast provided to the New York Times was 8,000 but this number apparently included duplicate entries, so now this number has been narrowed down to 700 accounts that were exposed.
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Back in November, we found reports circulating about a data breach at the University of Florida affecting over 300,000 records at the College of Dentistry. We are now seeing yet another breach involving a little over 97,000 people. This breach is part of a wave of intrusions reported by the University over the past year or so and names and social security numbers are involved. It is unknown whether the hacker accessed this personal data or not, but the system was compromised.
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What better time to be online shopping for the right Lifelock promo code? Millions will have to be notified of the potential of exposure of their computer/personal information to an unauthorized party.  One of our data breach sources and the New Hampshire Department of Justice have reported that back on December 2, (more…)

We bring the following story to you in the hope that you will realize that while no one is safe from being touched by the crime of identity theft, many can protect themselves with a good identity theft protection plan, like LifeLock.

Hurricane Katrina spread through the news like wildfire as several thousands were displaced from their homes and had to move on. We all remember the pictures of the devastating storm in the news and may we say that for those who went through the terrible affects this storm had (which we can not even begin to imagine) we are sorry to see such happen to your area. This did unmentionable damage and ruined the lives of too many to account for. Has everything calmed after the storm? Not hardly. (more…)

Starbucks has recently reported an incident that has exposed 97,000 employees to the risk of having their identity stolen. A laptop that contained the employees’ personal information (including names, addresses and social security numbers) was stolen on Wednesday, October 29th. A memo to those affected can be found online at: Starbucksgossip.com. The memo shows that the Seattle police department have been notified and that there is no sign that this information has been misused.
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Many students are outraged with the recently reported intrusion into a computer server at the University of Florida College of Dentistry. Over 344,000 records are at risk due to the unauthorized access to their birth date, social security number, name and address. Although the breach was discovered back on October 3rd, the incident is just recently being reported.
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Texas A&M University seems to be having frequent problems with their computer system suffering security breaches. It is reported that for the fourth time in two years, the university has exposed social security numbers of current and former students.

One of their students did an internet search on the university web site and found information that included applicants who were admitted to the university in 2005. The information found included the social security number of the student who initiated the search.

The web site was shut down temporarily so the document could be removed.

“We take this very seriously and it is always disappointing when something like this happens,” A&M-Corpus Christi President Flavius Killebrew said Friday.

The university Executive Vice President of Finance and Administration advised that letters of all individuals affected were to be mailed out this past Monday. The time frame involved is not currently known and authorities are working to figure out how long the information was able to be viewed on the internet.

This is the most recent incident reported by the university. An earlier occurrence took place in September 2008 when a computer server was illegally accessed by an outside hacker, also exposing records that included student social security numbers.

A flash drive containing social security numbers of students was misplaced back in June of 2007 and to wrap up the list, a class roster of 49 students’ was misplaced that contained social security numbers. The use of social security numbers as identifiers was discontinued in the fall of 2007.

A university employee will be reprimanded for the availability of such numbers in the most recent incident. These were to be wiped off of the server’s archives.