Privacy

A thief stole a government laptop with personal information on 133,000 Florida residents, the latest in a surge of thefts and hacker incursions that could lead to financial fraud.

The U.S. Transportation Department's Inspector General announced the theft Wednesday, two weeks after the laptop was stolen in Doral, Fla., and five days after investigators learned that its hard drive contained sensitive data. Letters are being sent to those who may be affected, acting Inspector General Todd Zinser said.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced that another laptop containing the personal data of up to 38,000 veterans has been stolen. Although the department was made aware of the problem on August 3, the theft was publicly announced yesterday. The desktop computer was stolen from Unisys, a subcontractor for the Department of Veterans Affairs that handles insurance collection at VA hospitals in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

AOL released the internet search terms that more than 650,000 of its subscribers entered over a three-month period and admitted Monday that what it originally intended as a gesture to researchers amounted to a privacy breach and a mistake.

Although AOL had substituted numeric IDs for the subscribers' real user names, the company acknowledged the search queries themselves may contain personally identifiable data.

It sounds like something out of science fiction.

Researchers at General Electric Co.'s sprawling research center, are creating new "smart video surveillance" systems that can detect explosives by recognizing the electromagnetic waves given off by objects, even under clothing.

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that personal identity information was neither downloaded nor transferred outside the department?s computer system last month when it was illegally accessed. Based on information obtained by department investigators, the agency notified current and former employees as well as contractors in the Washington D.C. area their personal data had not been compromised.

Officials at Western Illinois University are looking into how to lessen the time it takes to notify students and alums of computer security breaches.
The move comes after it took a month for the school to notify former students that hackers had accessed their personal information.

The social security numbers and credit card information of about 180-thousand former students were accessed on June Fifth, but the school didn't send notices about the breach until June 26th.

School officials say the breach was fixed the day it was discovered.

The government has recovered a stolen laptop computer and hard drive with sensitive data on up to 26.5 million veterans and military personnel.

The FBI said Thursday there is no evidence that anyone accessed Social Security numbers and other data on the equipment.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson, in announcing the recovery of the computer, said there have been no reports of identity theft stemming from the May 3 burglary at a VA employee's Maryland home.

About 28,000 sailors and family members have had their personally identifiable information put on display on a civilian website.

The information has since been removed, according to a Naval NewsStand report. A website containing five spreadsheets displayed the names, birthdates, and Social Security numbers for those 28,000 sailors and related persons.

The Navy Personnel Center will contact those whose information has been publicly exposed. Sailors may also call the Center directly to see if their personal data was exposed.