Identity Theft
And so it escalates - Beware.....
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...a_lexisnexis_dc
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And so it escalates - Beware.....
LexisNexis Uncovers More Consumer Data Breaches
1 hour, 59 minutes ago
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By Bill Rigby and Theo Kolker
NEW YORK/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Data broker LexisNexis said on Tuesday that personal information on 310,000 U.S. citizens may have been stolen from its computer systems, 10 times more than its initial estimate last month.
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An investigation by LexisNexis -- owned by Anglo-Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier -- determined that its databases had been fraudulently breached 59 times using stolen passwords, leading to the possible theft of personal information such as addresses and Social Security numbers. LexisNexis, which said in March that 32,000 people had been potentially affected by the breaches, will notify an additional 278,000 individuals whose data may have been stolen.
Of the initial group contacted, only 2 percent asked the company to conduct an investigation of their credit records. LexisNexis has found no cases of identity theft, such as using a stolen Social Security number to apply for a fraudulent credit card.
\"We need to write to them and offer the same kind of support and investigation we offered the original 32,000,\" a Reed Elsevier spokeswoman said.
\"Of the original group, it's somewhat encouraging that none of them has suffered identity theft.\"
Law enforcement authorities are assisting the company's investigations, which come as lawmakers in Washington consider tighter regulation of data brokers.
SIFTING THROUGH DATA
Recent break-ins at LexisNexis and ChoicePoint have heightened concerns about identity theft, a crime that costs U.S. consumers and businesses $50 billion annually, according to government estimates.
ChoicePoint in February announced that identity thieves had gained access to some 145,000 consumer profiles, while Bank of America said that same month that it had lost a shipment containing sensitive details of 1.2 million U.S. government customers.
Reed Elsevier moved to soothe investors' fears by reaffirming its earnings forecasts, saying the financial implications of the breach were expected to be manageable within the context of LexisNexis's overall growth.
Its shares were down more than 1 percent in London and Amsterdam at 1500 GMT.
The breach, uncovered after a billing complaint by a customer at LexisNexis's Seisint unit, led to the discovery of an identity and password that had been misappropriated.
The information accessed included names, addresses, Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers, but not credit histories, medical records or financial information, LexisNexis said.
Data-collection services provided by Seisint, based in Boca Raton, Florida, allow police and financial firms to sift through vast amounts of personal information -- from the color of someone's eyes to the type of car they drive.
One Seisint database called the Matrix, which allows state law enforcers to quickly zero in on criminal suspects, has come under criticism from civil-liberties groups.
LexisNexis bought Seisint in July 2004 for $745 million.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...a_lexisnexis_dc
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