A New Cyber-Security Breach (Bank of America 1.2 Million Fed Employees)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1032140,00.html

In the financial world's latest cyber-identity crisis, Bank of America today is warning the holders of at least 1.2 million of its federal employee credit card accounts that a major security breach may have left their account information exposed to theft or hacking, according to a senior U.S. official and Bank spokeswoman.

The U.S. official said that federal law enforcement is investigating the loss of several Bank of America data backup tapes that were being transferred across country by air when they disappeared in December. "We are proactively sending letters to impacted cardholders," said Alexandra Trower, spokesperson for Charlotte-based Bank of America. She said that after intensive account-monitoring, the tapes are at this point believed to be lost, not stolen. "We, with federal law authorities, have done a very robust, thorough investigation on this and neither we nor they would make the statement lightly that we believe those tapes to be lost," she said. "We have no evidence that the tapes have been accessed in any way. We have witnessed no unusual activity. And we've been monitoring the situation very closely."

H'mmm I find this very suspicious. A new way for BFEE to make federal money disappear in to their coffers?

[EVDebs]

1. SAIC, ChoicePoint, and now BofA...The FTC's protections are a joke

With all of this outsourcing of our personal financial data that banks and hospitals seem to view as 'their' personal property, it is now readily apparent that the recinding of the Glass Steagall Act, which lets banks use your information as marketing hubs into their own web of corporate 'affiliates' strung out across the globe, is officially A DISASTER !

The FTC's 'protections' are a joke and homeland security isn't up to protecting your personal financial and medical records, let alone you personally.

""But Alan Paller, director of research at the Bethesda, Md.-based SANS Institute, said the California law is probably necessary because of the kinds of crime that are occurring. A group in Russia and Ukraine has been acquiring customer data, extorting money to prevent its release and then selling it anyway. Paller believes some companies are paying off the extortionists in an attempt to contain the damage."" from
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/hacking/story/0,10801,76721,00.html

Oh, lovely, companies are paying off foreign extortionists and the US taxpayer isn't getting the whole story, just a bigger bill !

[LevelB]

10. You called it Debs

The private sector is ALWAYS more efficient and more secure.

Not.

B.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

31. Don't forget Wesley Clark's client he lobbied to DARPA, Acxiom...n/t

[Rose Siding]

2. That tape included info on some US Senators, including Leahy

snip>
Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., is among those senators whose personal information is on the missing tapes, spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said.

"There were some senators' Visa credit card accounts involved," Schmaler said. "We don't know how many, but he was one of them."
...
Leahy has been a leader of calls this week for a Senate Judiciary Committee inquiry into whether more regulation of companies that buy and sell personal data is needed.

That came after the disclosure that ChoicePoint Inc., a data warehouser, had learned that as many as 140,000 consumers may have had their personal information compromised.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/FinancialSecurity/wireStory?id=532645

Ironic, huh?

[lovuian]

5. Leahy's this sounds very suspicous!!! I bet it was OSAMA!!!

I can see that the social security card is day is over when everybody has access... Watch we will need fingerprinting and Eye scans soon to PROTECT US!!!

[DoYouEverWonder]

49. That won't protect you from having your data stolen

n/t

[EVDebs]

8. Sheeeesh. And during the Anthrax scare only Dems were getting sent

those kinds of letters.

[Skittles]

3. I can see now why they needed to halt class-action lawsuits

bastards

[TexasLawyer]

4. But Remember...

If you even suggest that central tabulators may have been hacked in order to manipulate results in the 2004 election-- you are a freakin' nut job.

[Straight Shooter]

12. Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a WINNER!

And notice that the info went missing in December.

Where are we now? Oh, yeah. February.

[NVMojo]

48. good connection, this is no different, whether it is banking or elections

[Dem2theMax]

6. If my data were stolen, and the company didn't fess up for months,

I'd want to sue.

Oh wait. Didn't the courts just say that class action lawsuits can only be brought before the FEDERAL courts now? Is my tin hat on too tight or is the timing of all these announcements very fishy?

[warrior1]

7. BofA: 1.2 million accounts jeopardized

http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/25/news/fortune500/bank_america/

Firm says tapes containing info about government cardholders, including U.S. senators, went missing.
February 25, 2005: 7:35 PM EST

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Bank of America said Friday it lost computer tapes containing account information on 1.2 million federal employee credit cards, among them those of U.S. senators, potentially exposing them to theft or hacking.

The bank told CNN/Money that federal government's General Services Administration (GSA) cardholders' account information may have been on the tapes.

The tapes were lost in December, but a bank spokeswoman told Reuters that bank officials were not allowed to notify cardholders until they received permission from federal law enforcement authorities

snip

[EVDebs]

9. Osama's only got to get a job in IT at one of these banks...and poof

there goes the entire US financial system. Greed, especially Citigroup's who pushed thru the banking deregulation initially even illegally I think since they did it without federal approvals -- someone can check me on this, I think it was with the Traveller's merger, is behind the initial push. Citigroup is also one of the country's biggest outsourcers of financial information...

[FloridaPat]

11. That is actually funny. He doesn't even have to get a green card.

The banks, including BOA, are shipping computer programming jobs overseas. They could probably wipe out the entire system in one shot.

[EVDebs]

33. Here it is, Citigroup ILLEGALLY merged with Travellers and then

coerced Congress into invalidating the Glass Steagall Act ! The pliant Congress (I guess in lieu of cash for campaigning) and Alan Greenspan wanted this to happen:

""Citigroup was formed in 1998 by the then-illegal merger of Citicorp (a bank holding company for Citibank) and Travelers Insurance. This was illegal because the Glass-Steagall Act (legislation stemming from the United States' Great Depression era) did not allow banks to merge with insurance and brokerage companies. (At the time Glass-Steagall's enforcement was already being phased out.) The Federal Reserve granted the parties a two-year trial period prior to the merger, and subsequently Glass-Steagall was invalidated by the passing of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999.""

from http://www.answers.com/topic/citigroup

The ethically challenged bank owes much to the largesse of its biggest stockholder from Saudi Arabia..."Citi assures Saudi
prince scandals over"
http://www.nydailynews.com/business/story/281178p-240973c.html

Maybe that story is premature ?

[TahitiNut]

13. Absolutely nothing would prevent them from encrypting any data ...

... being shipped or transported on a common carrier. Their failure to do so is malfeasance of the highest order.

[Rose Siding]

16. It's like they think they're suddenly in the voting machine business

...the new Diebold Standard For Financial Services

[EVDebs]

32. Saudi software firm Ptech had access to FAA and intell computers 9-11-01

I wonder if the general public will ever be made aware of that along with the wargames going on on 9-11-01 like Vigilant Warrior etc. ?

Encrypted or not, the information now is being totally offshored to the Bahamas. See Total Information Awareness Goes Offshore

http://www.zmetro.com/archives/000901.php

""Bell's new employer, the Bahamas-based Global Information Group Ltd., intends to amass large databases of international records and analyze them in the coming years for corporations, government agencies and other information services. One of the first customers is information giant LexisNexis Group, one of the main contractors on the government system that was known until recently as the second generation of the Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening Program, or CAPPS II. The program is now known as Secure Flight.""

TIA has morphed into CAPPS II. Big brother is now really a bunch of corporate 'little brothers'.

[GetTheRightVote]

14. This is a new way to tax the working class of USA

:kick:

[Mr_Spock]

15. Financial data lost by Bank of America

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/02/26/financial_data_lost_by_bank_of_america/


Error affects 1.2m accounts of federal workers
By Sasha Talcott, Globe Staff | February 26, 2005

Bank of America Corp. has lost tapes containing personal financial information for 1.2 million accounts of federal employees, including US senators and members of the Defense Department.

ADVERTISEMENT

The tapes contained personal information, including Social Security numbers, addresses, and account numbers for employees in several government agencies. The lost information, which the bank was transporting to a backup data center, could make those customers vulnerable to identity theft.

Bank of America first discovered in December that the tapes had been lost and alerted the Secret Service, but it did not make the loss public until yesterday. A Bank of America spokeswoman, Alexandra Trower, said the bank waited to contact customers until federal law-enforcement authorities concluded their investigation and gave the bank permission.

-snip-

[Catchawave]

17. My BoA ATM machine says....

...DIEBOLD. Hmmmmmm?

[LevelB]

18. Another aspect of this

is that Federal employees were given no choice in this matter. These cards were forced upon them, whether they wanted them or not. They were also told that these cards would not affect their credit ratings in any way.

B.

[emad]

19. US bank 'loses' customer details

BBC

The Bank of America has revealed it has lost computer tapes containing account details of more than one million customers who are US federal employees.

Several members of the US Senate are among those affected, who could now be vulnerable to identity theft.

Senate sources say the missing tapes may have been stolen from a plane by baggage handlers.

The bank gave no details of how the records disappeared, but said they had probably not been misused.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4300371.stm

[barbaraann]

20. Part of the BFEE war against union members and Dems.

I'll bet that every Senator involved is a Dem. The GOP gets away with this because the media doesn't report it.

[emad]

21. When I saw the headline I thought it was going to be a Riggs Bank

story......

[peekaloo]

25. Leahy is one. That dust up with Big Dick has lingering effects.

[brainshrub]

22. Is the BBC the only one reporting this?

Who broke this story?

[peekaloo]

26. CBS ran the story last night.

[DulceDecorum]

23. Fleet Bank

just rolled into Bank of America.

I have said it once and I will say it again:
NEVER bank with an entity that shares it name with an enema.
Looks like B of A has got the runs now.

[tanyev]

24. Ooopsie. Our bad.

It might be interesting to see what some Senators purchase with their credit cards.

[MeDeMax]

27. Bank of America vs US Bank

hi,

just wished to bring to your attention that "US Bank" is the legal name of another banking/financial institution:



To the best of my knowledge USBank hasn't reported losing any tapes.

You may wish to edit the subject line in your original post to something different.

just fyi, :)

[emad]

28. Can't. LBN rules state you have to post the original headline

with no editing....

[brainshrub]

29. LBN rules aside, I don't think there is a problem with the headline.

The letter "b" in bank is not capitalized, Bank of America IS a United States bank and the body of the post quickly establishes which financial institution allegedly lost the records.

A reasonable person would not be mislead into thinking that US Bank was the corporation discussed here.

Just sayin'.

[realFedUp]

30. That security breach and crime should make us all feel better

forget planes going into buildings....this
is 1.2 million plus people including 63 (I heard)
U.S. Senators losing their identity numbers
and bank records. Bet this is a busy weekend
for them.

This is the kind of thing that wouldn't
visually frighten people or start a war and
invasion, but it is huge and terrifying.

[NVMojo]

34. Bank Loses Card Data of Senators, U.S. Govt Staff

About that Homeland Security and Patriot Act ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Computer tapes containing credit card records of U.S. Senators and more than a million U.S. government employees are missing, Bank of America said on Friday, putting the customers at increased risk of identity theft.

The security breach, which included data on a third of the Pentagon's staff, angered lawmakers already concerned after criminals gained access to thousands of consumer profiles in a database maintained by a data profiling company, ChoicePoint Inc.

Bank of America Corp. did not release details of how the tapes were lost, but Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said he had been informed by the Senate Rules Committee that the data tapes were likely stolen off a commercial plane by baggage handlers.

more...

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=3GAHLM4KOOAEOCRBAEKSFEY?type=domesticNews&storyID=7746667

[yinkaafrica]

35. Computer TAPES?

I thought they stopped using tapes to store data years ago

[benburch]

45. Tapes are still the best backup store for large data sets.

They are cheap, store well, and hold a lot of data.

LTO drives can store up to 400GB on a single tape, which is really enough for the entire current data set for a bank. (And should you need more than that, there are autoloaders.)

[mod mom]

36. I wonder if the stolen records are bi partisan. nt

[thecrow]

37. I wonder if it was done by a consumer mad at Choicepoint?

What goes around comes around.

[jus_the_facts]

38. Oh well...India now has most all info on every US citizen from outsourcing

....jobs there....don't see what the big deal is just because this particular *theft* has to do with a *majority* of RIGHTWING gov't officials it's supposed to be a big deal? :eyes: :nopity:

[Cookie wookie]

39. fixed link

oophs, can't fix it.

[benburch]

46. Fixed link here.

here

[DoYouEverWonder]

40. Well at least maybe now they will do something

about this mess. It makes a big difference when these turkeys are effected directly.

Like in FL, where they privatized the states payroll services. It turned into a huge mess, so our legistlature is now rethinking privitization has a result.

[fooj]

41. Here's a thought...

You can't investigate records that are "lost"!!

[MADem]

42. Oh, what do you want to bet this will be the NEW BIG THING

...that the country HAS to get their arms around!! After years of individuals getting fucked over by identity theft, having their lives RUINED, and no one really giving a shit or even helping them, now that the Hill and the funny farm are in danger, it will become JOB 1 for these jerks...they'll probably pass a bill demanding that anyone convicted of identity theft be put to death, and if it is a public servant's identity stolen that they be disembowelled...

[LiberalFighter]

43. It's all TSA's fault

[librechik]

44. I wonder how the baggage handlers knew to take THOSE tapes

and reason why I don't check baggage when I travel.

[AnnInLa]

47. Post #2

I was wondering the same thing....just because we're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get us, lol.

[Moderator]

50. kick to combine threads

[redacted]

51. US bank 'loses' customer details (BBC News)

The Bank of America has revealed it has lost computer tapes containing account details of more than one million customers who are US federal employees.

Several members of the US Senate are among those affected, who could now be vulnerable to identity theft.

Senate sources say the missing tapes may have been stolen from a plane by baggage handlers.

The bank gave no details of how the records disappeared, but said they had probably not been misused.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4300371.stm

[joeybee12]

52. Good Lord! And once again, we have to go overseas for news about

the USA. How pathetic is the media here?

[qanda]

53. I just had unauthorized use of my BofA account last week

I wonder if this has anything to do with it.

[spacedog]

54. Boston Globe covered this

It was on the front page of the Globe today. But, ya know, we're all just crazy liberals up here.... we have no idea what we're talking about.

[chaumont58]

55. I'm suspicious of anything remotely connected with a politician

BofA is hq now in North Carolina. I wouldn't be surprised is some wingnut took this data, and it will popup soon on Rush or Hannity or some part of FauxNewsChannel.

[elehhhhna]

56. reciepts from Gannon, for example?