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Written by: Barbara Lauren
Published: 03/16/2005 Identity Theft from LexisNexis Affects 32,000 Consumers
LexisNexis is the most recent provider of legal and business data to announce that fraud artists have assumed the identities and used the passwords of legitimate customers to download customer data, according to the Washington Post.
Data downloaded included names, addresses, Social Security Numbers and driver’s license numbers.
The Post catalogued the following security breaches, and the numbers of people affected, which have been announced in recent months:
- LexisNexis - 32,000 consumers affected
- ChoicePoint - 145,000 affected
- Bank of America Corp. - 1.2 million federal workers (including U.S. Senators)
- DSW (shoe retailer) - Has revealed that credit card numbers of people who shopped at 103 of its 175 stores had been obtained by hackers.
Hearings are planned on Capitol Hill. “The view is a chilling one,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Data brokers are also increasingly partners with the government in important law enforcement and homeland security efforts, and their performance in protecting data is one of the important criteria in evaluating those relationships.”
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