2.3 Million Consumer Financial Records Stolen
Author: Dave Lewis
Here is a poignant example as to why enterprises have to keep tabs on their employees.
From MSNBC:
Fidelity National Information Services, a financial processing company, said Tuesday a worker at one of its subsidiaries stole 2.3 million consumer records containing credit card, bank account and other personal information.
The employee sold the information to an unidentified data broker. The broker then sold it to several direct marketing companies, but the data was not used in identity theft or other fraudulent financial activity, officials from Fidelity subsidiary Certegy Check Services Inc. said in a conference call.
About 2.2 million records stolen from Certegy contained bank account information and 99,000 contained credit card information, company officials said.
“As a result of this apparent theft, the consumers affected received marketing solicitations from the companies that bought the data,” said Renz Nichols, president of St. Petersburg-based Certegy.
“We believe that is the extent of any damage to the public,” he said.
Too often in the past I have encountered companies who “trust their employees”. An ounce of prevention.
Tags: Dat Theft, Privacy, Fidelity Data Theft, Insider Threat
It’s funny – I’ve seen some reactions to the effect of “DBAs must be trustworthy. If you don’t trust your DBA, fire him and hire someone you can trust”. I think this is naïvete to the extreme. People are not inherently trustworthy or not trustworthy. Certainly I don’t know of DBAs with a history of antisocial behavior and a criminal record… It depends on the situation. Take someone you consider trustworthy, add a pinch of anger/dissatisfaction and a dash of temptation/greed, and voila, they’re not so trustworthy anymore. And I haven’t even mentioned the more extreme situations of blackmail, duress or financial trouble. This is why supervision, monitoring, auditing and all the other measures are necessary.
Some time ago I read in the Financial Security Digest a statement that also the Social Security Commission made and I’d like to have the date and which edition of the Digest it can be found. It was, primarily, that “95% of Americans are broke at age 60.” That may not be the exact wording, but it’s very close. If you can supply the date and source of the SSC’s quote on that statement, I’d appreciate receiving that also. Appreciate your response. Thank you. Joe