how worried should you be?<\/i><\/p>\n
“the last few years have seen a slew of data breaches\u00e2\u20ac\u201dall bad, but some worse than others,” says eweek in compiling the 17 top security failures in the past three years.<\/p>\n
july 2007 <\/b>
\nfidelity national information services <\/i>
\na senior-level employee of a subsidiary of financial processing company fidelity national information services stole 2.3 million consumer records containing credit card, bank account and other personally identifiable information.
\n
\njuly 2007<\/b>
\nsaic <\/i>
\nby neglecting to encrypt data sent over the internet, employees of government contractor science applications international corp. put the sensitive information of more than 800,000 u.s. service members and their families at risk.<\/p>\n
june 2007 <\/b>
\nstate of ohio <\/i>
\na computer storage device containing the names and social security numbers of every ohio state worker was stolen from an intern\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vehicle.
\nmarch 2007<\/b>
\nlos angeles county child support services department<\/i>
\nseveral laptops containing personal information\u00e2\u20ac\u201dincluding about 130,500 social security numbers\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwere apparently stolen from the department’s office. <\/p>\n
december 2006<\/b>
\ntjx companies<\/i>
\nduring an 18-month period, 45.6 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen from one of tjx\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s systems. <\/p>\n
december 2006 <\/b>
\nuniversity of california, los angeles<\/i>
\na hacker breached a university-administered database containing personal information on about 800,000 people. <\/p>\n
august 2006<\/b>
\nmiami office of the u.s. department of transportation <\/i>
\nas a result of the theft of a u.s. department of transportation laptop, personally identifiable information of about 133,000 florida residents was exposed. <\/p>\n
august 2006<\/b>
\naol <\/i>
\ndata on 20 million web queries, from more than 600,000 users, was posted on a public web site. some search records included personal information, such as social security numbers.
\n
\njune 2006 <\/b>
\nnaval safety center
\nfive spreadsheet files with personal data on approximately 28,000 sailors and family members were found on an open web site. <\/p>\n
may 2006 <\/b>
\nwells fargo<\/i>
\nthe theft of a laptop exposed the personal information of customers.
\n
\nmay 2006 <\/b>
\ndepartment of veterans affairs
\na national database containing sensitive data on about 26.5 million veterans was stolen after an employee brought the data home. <\/p>\n
february 2006<\/b>
\ndepartment of agriculture
\nas a result of hackers illegally accessing a usda database containing names and social security numbers, about 26,000 current and former employees were exposed to identity theft. <\/p>\n
january 2006 <\/b>
\nboston globe and worcester telegram & gazette <\/i>
\nthe personal information of about 240,000 people who paid for their subscriptions to the globe and telegram by credit card or personal check was exposed when that information was printed out. the printouts were then used to wrap newspaper bundles. <\/p>\n
january 2006<\/b>
\nh&r block <\/i>
\nsome h&r block customers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 social security numbers were embedded in the tracking code of mailing labels used to send out (unsolicited) tax-prep software. <\/p>\n
september 2005 <\/b>
\nchoicepoint <\/i>
\nthrough what amounted to a social hack, criminals gained access to the systems of database giant choicepoint. the data of more than 145,000 people was exposed. <\/p>\n
march 2005 <\/b>
\nlexisnexis<\/i>
\nthe personal information of about 300,000 was exposed via multiple system hacks of lexisnexis databases. <\/p>\n
february 2005 <\/b>
\nameritrade<\/i>
\nin transit, a computer backup tape containing the account information of more than 200,000 clients was lost or accidentally destroyed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"