RSSChoicePoint ID Theft Problem Worsens
By Ed Oswald | Published February 17, 2005, 1:14 PM
The identity theft investigation involving database giant ChoicePoint, a company that provides consumer information to insurance companies, got much larger late Wednesday.
The company disclosed an additional 110,000 people across the country could have had their personal information compromised, bringing the total number of possible victims to 145,000. The new tally likely makes ChoicePoint's break-in the largest case of identity theft in history.
"ChoicePoint is actively engaged with local and federal law enforcement agencies in the continuing investigation of a fraud committed against us," the company said in a statement, "through which a small number of very well organized criminals posed as legitimate companies to gain access to personal information about consumers."
The story, first revealed on MSNBC.com late Monday, originally estimated that some 35,000 California residents were affected. Nearly 50 fake companies had been set up to access the information, through which data was compromised last fall.
Although the breach was discovered in October, law enforcement officials prevented the company from disclosing it, even to the victims themselves.
"They gave a toll free number to call, but when I called, the person just read from a script ... they said disclosing too many details may hurt an ongoing investigation," Elizabeth Rosen, a California resident who received one of the letters told MSNBC.
So far, approximately 750 instances of identity theft relating to the compromised information have been found in California alone.
ChoicePoint says it has acted to prevent the problem again in the future. "We are continually updating our processes and procedures to ensure the integrity of our systems and the information they contain," the company said.
I wonder what insecure OS this company used to allow such an attack to happen to begin with ?
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Now everybody that gets spam that says 'want to know EVERYTHING about ANYBODY . . . send me $29.95! I bet there are at least 50 spammers making TONS of AMERICAN MONEY doing this. I also wonder how many TOP US OFFICIALS ARE NOW CHECKING THERE CREDIT REPORTS? Information ALWAYS gets out!!
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Perhaps reading more will help you all. This is a basic fraud case. The criminals used stolen id's to creat fake businesses. they then applied for and were granted access to the database at choicepoint. Granted the security needs to be much better at these companies but i think you all might have missed how it started. this was not a hack nor a cracker but basic ID Theft. :-)
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This should be unacceptable in 2005 with all the thousands cases previously of identity theft. We need legislation *yesterday* on preventing this BY HOLDING COMPANIES responsible for the data they hold on individuals. Banks have done this for years. They hold people's money and they guard it quite well (well, at least most do, to the point that if money is stolen from a branch we don't lose any money directly.)
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Would like to meet this person(s)! Damn! Talk about making people feel like complete idiots.
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better still should the police protect the victems and also arest the cuprits ,is it not what they are paid fo ,to serve and protect
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ya ... you are right ... this should be UNACCEPTABLE in 2005 ... but there is a lot unacceptable things going on in 2005 ... so far to go ...
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