Ongoing Data Breaches Continue to Prove Consumer Identities Remain at Risk

Consumers continue to be at "genuine" risk of fraud and identity theft when our personal identifying information is lost, stolen or pilfered from hacked databases on a daily basis.

It's remarkable that Experian claims the law (they helped write) allows "individuals" (not companies) to only place fraud alerts on our credit reports if we have "a genuine suspicion of imminent fraud."

With the continued reports of massive data loss, not to mention the many reports that indicate an identity theft occurs every 3 seconds, (and 1 in 4 credit reports are contaminated with dirty data), who wouldn't have a "genuine suspicion" that their identity or data is at risk?

Technological advances continue to make it increasingly difficult to protect our identities from innovative criminals with pioneering minds.

Simple commonsense tells us we should utilize any and all safeguards available to proactively prevent or reduce the effects of fraud. Fraud Alerts are a good line of defense that many of us choose to activate. Fraud alerts it would seem, should be welcomed by responsible creditors and the cra's who want to help fight against the costly effects of fraud. It's easy to understand that fraud alerts and id theft prevention services put a huge dent Experian's profits -but that shouldn't be our concern. Rest assured they still profit from the sale of our information and won't go out of business anytime soon.

Experian's lawsuit won't just affect LifeLock, it could ultimately affect our rights to maintain active fraud alerts and our ability to ensure our credit and identity remains just that ...ours!

Here's a few of the latest reported data breaches...

Breach of MTV Computer Files

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -- Computer files with confidential data on about 5,000 employees at MTV Networks were breached by someone outside the company, the network told employees on Friday in a memo.

MTV later said in a statement that the security breach occurred after an Internet connection in an employee's computer was compromised.

Although it was not immediately clear whether the password-protected files were opened, MTV, a division of Viacom, notified law enforcement authorities and a credit monitoring company to safeguard the identities of the affected employees, the statement said. MORE

Ten Most Recent (Reported) Data Breaches according to attritrion.org/dataloss

Cascade Healthcare Community - [2008-03-06]
(Computer virus exposes credit card information, names, and addresses of more than 11,500)

Nevada Department of Public Safety - [2008-03-05]
(Social Security numbers and addresses of 109 on lost thumb drive)

Madeley Health Centre (UK) - [2008-03-05]
(Names, addresses, dates of birth and medical treatment details of 238 on stolen memory stick)

Kraft Foods - [2008-03-03]
(Missing laptop contains names and possibly Social Security numbers of 20,000)

Wellesley Health Department - [2008-02-29]
(Social Security numbers, names, addresses, and dates of birth for about 480 lost from open envelope)

Health Net Federal Services - [2008-02-27]
(Social Security numbers for 103,000 posted on web)

Mecklenburg County, North Carolina (NC) - [2008-02-25]
(400 account numbers in stolen vehicle)

Newfoundland Eastern School District - [2008-02-21]
(Medicare numbers, names, and addresses of 28,000 students on stolen laptop)

Texas A&M University - [2008-02-16]
(Names and Social Security numbers of 3,000 inadvertantly posted online)

First Magnus Financial - [2008-02-15]
(Thousands of documents containing Social Security numbers, credit card information, addresses recovered from trash)

To veiw details on each of these visit Attrition.org/dataloss

View an additional 43 incidents for 2008 alone, check out the archives from 2000 through 2008 and read the specifics...
click here click here.

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To view the top five tips to prevent identity theft visit prior blog here.