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In Brief

Attrition.org: Tracking Data Drains

Recent breaches chronicled by attrition.org

By CSO Contributor

February 05, 2007 — CSO —

On Dec. 13, 2006, when Boeing acknowledged a laptop with files containing the private data of 382,000 current and former employees, the tally that Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has kept since early 2005 of data breaches made public reached an artificial yet interesting milestone: 100 million records. In 2006 the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and Attrition.org cataloged 2 dozen breaches with more than 100,000 records of sensitive information—and that doesn't include breaches where the total is unknown, such as the personal data of "potentially millions of registered voters" the Ohio secretary of state sent to 20 political campaigns last April. Here are the five biggest breaches of 2006.

RECORDS POTENTIALLY BREACHED	WHERE AND WHEN MADE PUBLIC	WHAT HAPPENED
28.6 million	Veterans Affairs Department, May 22	Laptop stolen from employees home holds veterans personal data. Computer recovered and FBI forensics says no data accessed; veterans agency contracts monitor to see if data misused.
2.6 million	Circuit City, Chase Card Services, Sept. 7	Computer data tapes containing Circuit City cardholders data mistakenly discarded.
1.7 million	Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corp., May 30	Worker at subcontractor loses equipment containing borrowers names and Social Security numbers.
1.35 million	Chicago Election Board, Oct. 23	Illinois activists report they hacked into voter database where names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth are viewed.
1 million	American Red Cross, St. Louis chapter, May 24	Employee with access to donors Social Security numbers allegedly uses three records for ID theft scheme.