Calif. AG: 18.5 million residents' info exposed

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-EXCITE

BY BRANDON BAILEY

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Personal information about more than 18.5 million Californians was hacked, stolen or otherwise exposed last year and as many as one-third of those people will become victims of fraud, California Attorney General Kamala Harris said Tuesday in a new report on data breaches in the nation's biggest state.

Retailers, banks, health care providers and other organizations reported 167 different breaches in the state during 2013. That's six times more than the 2.5 million accounts hacked in 131 breaches in 2012, and represents nearly half of the state's 38 million residents. The alarming increase in malicious hacking and accidental leaks due to poor information security was mainly due to breaches at Target stores and Living Social, an online marketplace. Even without those two incidents, the number of customer accounts exposed by hacking, lost and stolen hard drives and accidental data leaks, jumped 35 percent last year.

As many as one third of people whose information is exposed in a data breach will subsequently suffer some kind of fraud, Harris adds in the report, citing estimates by Javelin Strategy and Research, a California firm that tracks financial industry trends.

More than half of the breaches reported in California involved malicious attempts by hackers or cyber-criminals who were determined to steal customer data, according to the report, which said "trans-national criminal organizations" appear to be responsible in many cases.

FULL story at link.



FILE - In this March 8, 2014, file photo, California Attorney General Kamala Harris speaks during a general session at the California Democrats State Convention in Los Angeles. The number of Californians whose personal data was hacked last year jumped sixfold to 18.5 million accounts and as many as one-third of those people will become victims of fraud, Harris says in a new report released Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014, on data breaches in the nation's biggest state. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20141028/us-calif-data-breaches-979ea1a598.html

[geretogo]

1. I think it's time to go back to cash only in your credit union or under the mattress . This is

ridiculous .

[Journeyman]

2. It's not a "breach" if the data is just being taken from everywhere we use our cards . . .

A "breach" implies a minimal effort by corporate entities to protect our financial data.

"Hackers" implies there's a necessary level of skill required to access the information.

But when our personal information and financial data is just whisked away, willy-nilly, from whomever happens to hold it at any given moment, there's no "breach" and there's no "hack" -- the information is just being simply downloaded from unsecured servers who's function appears to be merely to hold our info until the first interested party pings the connection.

Our data may as well be stored in decomposing peach baskets stacked outside the back door by the dumpster, for all the security afforded it by corporate America.

How many tens of millions is it now nationwide who have had their data compromised in just the past few months?

Target, Home Depot, Adobe, Healthcare.gov, J.P. Morgan, UPS, Cedars-Sinai, Albertsons, Anderson & Murison, CVS, Rite Aid, Bank of America.

Oh, hell -- that's just a portion of the first page on the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse website. There are 50 breaches per page there, and some 90 page in the database. 4,409 breaches -- a minimum of 929,674,710 records compromised. And those are only the data breaches made public!

It's not a "breach" and it's not a "hack" when there's no evidence of security in place in the least.

[blkmusclmachine]

3. I'm sure the NSA knows ALL ABOUT IT. I just wonder what kind of poison pill the Feds will try to get

us to swallow to "protect" us from "the bad guys." The invasion of full biometrics would be my guess...


We create a "problem," so that we can implement our pre-designed "solution" that you won't like. But you'll thank us, anyway, because we will "protect" you.




NINE ELEVEN