PC Theft nets personal info of 500,000 soldiers

Hey All,

Not something new to happen in the news world, but definitely something worth mentioning....

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Thieves who broke into a government contractor's office snatched computer hard drives containing Social Security numbers, addresses and other records of about 500,000 members of the military and their families.

The company, Phoenix-based TriWest Healthcare Alliance, provides managed health care to the military in 16 states, including Minnesota. It serves about 1.1 million active-duty personnel, their dependents and retirees. TriWest spokesman Jim Kassebaum said Thursday that no one whose records were stolen has reported a fraud related to the Dec. 14 theft.

"There's a potential for identity theft," Kassebaum said. "If you know anything about identity theft, it's a little insidious, because until it happens, you can't do anything about it."

The company said some credit-card numbers may also have been stolen.
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Read more about it Here

Hmmm, seems that if they get past the passwords when they plug it back in (bet on it!) they will find not much personal financial ("identity-theft" material) besides name & SS# which is widely available from simpler sources than breaking into the military TriCare offices. On the other hand, the perps will have a nearly bottomless reservoir of data critical in determining suitability for organ transplants; age, weight, height, general health or health problems, blood type, some DNA chains..... maybe the thieves were just tired of waiting their turn on the kidney-transplant list, and could not wait for the new National database to develop?

(BTW, the external link in the original post has been moved or taken down, it might be found by a query at the Library of Congress under the bill number mentioned. But then again... maybe not, interesting, or controversial, things disappear sometimes.) ;)

Times like this,


I wonder what happened to the word “security” or “encryption”. Anyway, did you know that we can get real-time 256-Bit full disk encryption.I am sure someone at TriWest Healthcare Alliance will be saying "if only..........."

too late buddy


scramdisk


http://www.scramdisk.com

[gloworange]Dr Evil[/gloworange]