Your secret is safe with us - promise!

this is a repost from the fine folks over at Attrition

If you get a phone call from your credit card company, do you give them your social security number? Your mother's maiden name? The soul of your first-born child? Do you think that the company that holds your personal information cares more about you than their own bottom line? Of course you don't. And of course they don't.

In a one month period, an estimated 40 million credit card numbers could have possibly been compromised. What do the companies in charge of your personal information have to say about it? Better yet... what is the media reporting? You won't get the same story on both sides, will you?

What is becoming a near weekly occurance, large companies are collecting your personal information (sometimes without your knowledge or consent), and subsequently letting it fall into the hands of the bad guys. This is your personal information; name, address, social security number, credit card number, and more sometimes. All of this information is invaluable to criminals who carry out identity theft crime every day.

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Ten Most Recent

University of Southern California - [2005-07-09]
(270,000 people to be contacted regarding security breach) [update] [mirror]

Michigan State University - [2005-07-07]
(27,000 accounts possibly compromised) [mirror]

Iron Mountain - [2005-07-06]
(physical loss of backup tapes - 600,000 exposed) [update] [mirror] [mirror 2]

DSW Shoes - [2005-06-30]
(Unspecified customer information, FTC Chief is victim - 1.4 million card numbers exposed) [mirror]

Medica Health Plans - [2005-06-29]
(System administrators may have had access to 1.2 million member records) [mirror]

CVS Corp. - [2005-06-21]
(Information on millions of transactions possibly revealed) [mirror]

CardSystems (MasterCard, Visa, American Express) - [2005-06-19]
(13.9 million compromised, but "only" 68,000 at high risk?) [update] [mirror] [mirror 2]

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) - [2005-06-17]
(personal data of nearly 6,000 current and former employees stolen) [mirror]

Equifax Canada Inc. - [2005-06-17]
(605 consumer files breached - second breach in the last year) [mirror]

Motorola - [2005-06-13]
(Theft of computers containing names and Social Security numbers) [mirror]

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And you people call me paranoid.