Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Incident: Personal information of 32,000 stolen from LexisNexis

Hot on the heels of the huge fraudulent theft of personal information from ChoicePoint, LexisNexis is reporting that a stolen ID and password has resulted in the theft of personal information of 32,000 people. From Reuters, via Yahoo! News:

Yahoo! News - Consumer Data Stolen from Reed Elsevier U.S. Unit:

"By Jeffrey Goldfarb

LONDON (Reuters) - Hackers illegally gained access to sensitive personal information of about 32,000 people stored on databases owned by Reed Elsevier, the second company to reveal a major breach in the past month.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Secret Service arm of the U.S. Treasury Department are investigating, a company spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

Anglo-Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier said the breach at its Seisint unit was found after a customer's billing complaint some time in the last week led to the discovery that an ID and password had been misappropriated.

The information accessed included names, addresses, social security and drivers' license numbers, but not credit history, medical records or financial information.

Reed Elsevier said it is in the process of contacting the 32,000 people affected and offering them ongoing credit monitoring and other support to detect any identity theft.

'Law enforcement officials have asked us to keep all this information close because they're hoping to catch up with some of these people,' the spokeswoman said...."

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