Lexis security breach may set record http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11378174.htm
Information giant LexisNexis announced after an extensive internal review that a security breach previously announced could affect some 310,000 consumers, including 15,615 Floridians. Herald Staff and Wire Reports Information broker giant LexisNexis announced Tuesday that previously announced security breaches at the company could affect some 310,000 consumers, with 15,615 Floridians among the victims. The incident was disclosed by the company after an extensive internal review of data search activity for the past two years at its recently acquired Seisint unit in Boca Raton. It could be one of the largest potential identity theft events on record. Last month, the company announced that its Seisint unit had been compromised by identity thieves using passwords that had been issued to Seisint customers for legitimate uses. LexisNexis initially estimated that Social Security numbers, drivers' license numbers, names and addresses of 30,000 consumers were exposed. The company is contacting the additional 280,000 persons whose information might have been stolen. Last July, LexisNexis pumped out $775 million to purchase Seisint, which sells data gathered from extensive searches of public records to businesses, law-enforcement agencies, private investigators and others. LexisNexis is owned by London-based Reed Elsevier. The company stressed that its technology and security systems hadn't been hacked. ''We regret that consumers, who traditionally are the primary beneficiaries of our risk management products and services, may have been affected by these events,'' Kurt Sanford, head of the company's corporate and federal markets group, said in a statement. ``We have taken a number of significant actions in recent weeks to further guard against these types of fraudulent intrusions at our customer sites and to enhance our security procedures and policies overall.'' The company said that affected consumers would be offered a free credit report and monitoring for a year. Only 600 people who accepted the initial offer for help; none had encountered identity theft problems so far. The announcement is yet another blow to the largely unregulated marketplace of sensitive personal information that involves megabrokers such as LexisNexis, ChoicePoint and Acxiom to smaller re-sellers, some private investigators and others. Each of the three large brokers has announced at last one major breach, as banks and other organizations that store consumer data. In response to these security breaches, U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Charles Sumner, D-N.Y., introduced a bill that would regulate the information brokers for the first time. More than two dozen states also are now examining identity theft legislation. Herald business writer Beatrice E. Garcia and Herald wire services contributed to this report. You are a subscribed member of the infowarrior list. Visit www.infowarrior.org for list information or to unsubscribe. This message may be redistributed freely in its entirety. Any and all copyrights appearing in list messages are maintained by their respective owners.
