NYT - LexisNexis Data on 310, 000 People Feared Stolen

[maddezmom]

By REUTERS
Published: April 12, 2005

Filed at 6:01 a.m. ET

NEW YORK/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Data broker LexisNexis said Tuesday that personal information may have been stolen on 310,000 U.S. citizens, or nearly 10 times the number found in a data breach announced last month.

An investigation by the firm's Anglo-Dutch parent 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 credit card.

~snip~
more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-media-lexisnexis.html

[BR_Parkway]

1. I want royalties. Who told LN, Choicepoint and all these others that they

could sell my info for profit? Not me. If I wrote a song, or a book or any other unique and creative material, I would be able to sue to prevent anyone else from using it. Well, I've create ME, the most unique ME their is - and no one else should be able to make a profit off that without my permission and a big deposit slip. How can I copywrite ME? Anyone got a clue?

[dbt]

2. The avalanche has begun; it is too late for the pebbles to vote.

Things are so much farther gone than we are led to believe by the Media Borg.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Specific demographic of "310,000 citizens": mostly lawyers and business

executives, managers, etc., i.e, folks with bucks. They sure wouldn't want unauthorized people running around with their credit card numbers . . .

[DeepModem Mom]

4. kick

[applegrove]

5. We truly need a map of the World, province by province, city by city,

state by state so we can see the progression of the data being stolen.

[Moderator]

6. kick to combine

[Up2Late]

7. LexisNexis Uncovers More Consumer Data Breaches (Reuters)

LexisNexis Uncovers More Consumer Data Breaches

Tue Apr 12, 2005 11:10 AM ET

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. 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. Continued ...