I would say, “Here we go again,” but that would be a tad misleading. It’s more like, “Same ‘ole, same ‘ole” only you and I didn’t know about it.
On Wednesday, The Dayton Daily News reported “Data Breach Hits LexisNexis. About 300 consumers’ personal information has been used in a crime, 30,000 people vulnerable.” 19 minutes ago Blogger News Network reported, “[LexisNexis] was just hacked again this week.”
You’d think this just happened, right? Wrong.
This data breach that left up to 32,000 consumers exposed to fraud and identity theft occurred almost 5 years ago. We’re just hearing about it now.
So what, right? It gets better.
The people affected… they’re just hearing about it now too!
LexisNexis Issues Letter to Victims of Personal Data Breach
The Dayton Daily News published this excerpt from a letter sent to consumers from LexisNexis:
“The unauthorized access to personal information by the former LexisNexis customers may have occurred sometime between June 14, 2004, and Oct. 10, 2007, and the information accessed may have included your name, date of birth, and/or Social Security number,” the LexisNexis letter says.
Back in 2004, ChoicePoint was rocked by theft. Using stolen identities to create false business documents, Tom Zeller of The New York Times reported thieves “duped [ChoicePoint] into delivering personal financial and background data on thousands of American consumers.”
But that wasn’t reported until 2005. Ooops.
In all fairness, we are told in the article that law enforcement officials were investigating the crimes and for that reason, prior disclosure was not made.
LexisNexis and ChoicePoint Data Vulnerabilities Continue
Now we learn another breach occurred sometime between 2004 and 2007. And no one – not even the affected consumers – was told until this week! I took math in school. And from what I can remember 2009 minus 2007 is 2; for grins and giggles, 2009 minus 2004 is 5.
That means for anywhere between 2 and 5 years, if you are one of the 32,000 people affected, you were unaware that your personal data had been compromised.You didn’t put a freeze on your credit reports; you didn’t cancel your credit card(s).
You weren’t even aware that you should have been on high alert.
Peter Rendina, a U.S. Postal inspector quoted in the Dayton Daily News article says that the investigation could not be revealed sooner because the “smart criminals… would have moved on to another information source.”
What other information source? Who else is there other than Reed Elsevier who owns LexisNexis who bought Seisint and gobbled up ChoicePoint who purchased DBT Online?
I mean, when you have a monopoly on data where else is a thief going to go?
Val Booth is a South Florida web strategist passionate about using online services to start, promote and grow business.
LexisNexis and Reed Elsevier Alert Consumers of Personal Data Security Breach… 5 Years Later
I would say, “Here we go again,” but that would be a tad misleading. It’s more like, “Same ‘ole, same ‘ole” only you and I didn’t know about it.
On Wednesday, The Dayton Daily News reported “Data Breach Hits LexisNexis. About 300 consumers’ personal information has been used in a crime, 30,000 people vulnerable.” 19 minutes ago Blogger News Network reported, “[LexisNexis] was just hacked again this week.”
You’d think this just happened, right? Wrong.
This data breach that left up to 32,000 consumers exposed to fraud and identity theft occurred almost 5 years ago. We’re just hearing about it now.
So what, right? It gets better.
The people affected… they’re just hearing about it now too!
LexisNexis Issues Letter to Victims of Personal Data Breach
The Dayton Daily News published this excerpt from a letter sent to consumers from LexisNexis:
Back in 2004, ChoicePoint was rocked by theft. Using stolen identities to create false business documents, Tom Zeller of The New York Times reported thieves “duped [ChoicePoint] into delivering personal financial and background data on thousands of American consumers.”
But that wasn’t reported until 2005. Ooops.
In all fairness, we are told in the article that law enforcement officials were investigating the crimes and for that reason, prior disclosure was not made.
LexisNexis and ChoicePoint Data Vulnerabilities Continue
Now we learn another breach occurred sometime between 2004 and 2007. And no one – not even the affected consumers – was told until this week! I took math in school. And from what I can remember 2009 minus 2007 is 2; for grins and giggles, 2009 minus 2004 is 5.
That means for anywhere between 2 and 5 years, if you are one of the 32,000 people affected, you were unaware that your personal data had been compromised.You didn’t put a freeze on your credit reports; you didn’t cancel your credit card(s).
You weren’t even aware that you should have been on high alert.
Peter Rendina, a U.S. Postal inspector quoted in the Dayton Daily News article says that the investigation could not be revealed sooner because the “smart criminals… would have moved on to another information source.”
What other information source? Who else is there other than Reed Elsevier who owns LexisNexis who bought Seisint and gobbled up ChoicePoint who purchased DBT Online?
I mean, when you have a monopoly on data where else is a thief going to go?