JUST what you want to see sitting on top of your daily stack of mail:
Note those deadly words: Data Breach Notification!!!
I lived in the fine state of South Carolina for 27 months, from May 1999 through August 2001. I filed tax returns for 1999, 2000 and 2001. And the clowns in South Carolina couldn't keep my data safe. So I got a LONG letter from them; here is one side of it:
I highlighted two pertinent portions. One is the Re: Data Breach Notification just under the address block. The other is more interesting. It says:
"Tax returns and other data at the South Carolina Department of Revenue were exposed to a security breach that took place in September 2012 and was discovered in October 2012."Please correct me if I am wrong (and I might be, since I am officially Chronologically Disabled), but isn't this February 2013? Isn't that FOUR MONTHS after the "Data Breach" was discovered in October 2012. Why in bloody HELL did it take FOUR MONTHS to notify me???? (And the others whose data was also stolen, probably 1000's more if not approaching a million or more.) I realize that forensic information technology investigations take time, but holy mother of data! FOUR MONTHS?!?!?!?! Let us know, pretty please, then come up with mitigation. Oh right, that would require TWO mailings. (I can hear them now. "Let's save money, just send one letter".)
In this case, I get essentially "forever" monitoring of my credit accounts. I can deal with that. I went out and signed up immediately. Now I just have to remember to check it regularly! At least I get reimbursed up to $1,000,000 for theft from my accounts. HAHAHAHAHA!!! As if I'd EVER have $1M in my accounts! I WISH! Just goes to show you, even the governments we live under can't protect our data.
Here's an interesting side note. While I was living in Dorchester County, South Carolina, I received a letter in the mail one day. It was from the county tax department. Seems they had a computer failure. A complete loss of data. The letter pretty much asked all of us fine residents to send them our tax money if we hadn't paid since they no longer had any record of taxes paid or owed. Oddly enough, working for the leading news TV station in the region, I knew about this story at least two weeks before the letter came out. Somehow, I think tax revenue in Dorchester County that year was pretty damn low. I know I didn't bother to write a check for an unknown amount of tax!!! Guess I'm just a scofflaw!!!
mercy sakes !
ReplyDeleteTruly. What a pain!
DeleteJay
Hello Jay
ReplyDeleteComplete incompetence - the nature of bureaucracies! The functionary responsible will probably be promoted to a level where he/she isn't involved in day to day practicalities, and thus is in far less of a position to do any more damage!
Love & best wishes
Sammy B
One has to wonder how they function at all. And you're right, the Peter Principle will come through again, hopefully.
DeleteJay
South Carolina keeps coming up with compelling reasons for me to LEAVE!! Congratulations on escaping this state.
ReplyDeleteIf I hadn't had to leave all the friends behind, it would haven been better!
DeleteJay
These "breach"es, followed by offers of credit surveillance, are becoming more common. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would start wondering.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but I think the conspiracy is in a collective refusal to spend the money necessary to truly protect everyone's data. What a PITA.
DeleteJay
That's one of the drawbacks from living in a digital age, the probability of information theft. Eldest son works at a site that has several super computers, and he is the baby sitter, so any little issue and he receives an email from which ever super computer is having issues. In one day, one 24 hour period he had over 5,000 attempted hacks, all from China. They never did get in due to the robust firewall. I see you wondering what was on these computers that they wanted so badly? I have no idea only that the DOD used most of the data space.......
ReplyDeleteOh yeah. We're a school system, we guard our data like it's Ft. Knox's gold! Our firewall is smacked on every day, and there's nothing but a bunch of kids' grades for the most part. Part of it is "can I get in, no matter what is there", but breaches like this are clearly a try to get personal info, especially Social Security Numbers. There's probably 1,000 Jay's out there now, all of Hispanic descent and I can guarantee that apart from some Cherokee WAAAAAY back there, no one in my family has brown skin (that's not being prejudiced, that's stating a fact). My problem now is watching like a hawk to see if anyone tries anything with my info.
DeleteJay
Four months is the time they spent trying to figure out how to get out of telling anyone. I wonder how many companies succeed in sweeping it under the carpet.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, Cubby. No doubt in my mind at all. As to who sweeps it away, I suspect that by now the stolen data, if it gets used can be traced to a particular source unless the thieves are especially good (and most aren't - this breach was probably socially engineered via phishing or malware), so to cover it up would result in even worse issues, including liability suits.
DeleteJay
I got McAfee. Is that any good? Some say firewalls are more trouble than they are worth.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to see an example of a "ding-a-ling" Bureaucracy, try the FAA !!!!
.......... "FOGGY" <3
McAfee is one of the recognized anti-virus, firewall programs that works well. Most of the problem is people just saying "YES" to every suggestion that they give out their passwords to anyone that asks. The same applies when your computer asks to install software. Did you START the software install procedure? Is it a known update? That's hard to know, but if you don't know the company wanting to install software, say NO.
DeleteOK, is this complicated enough? Yeah, your McAfee is fine, keep it up to date, do Windows updates.
Jay
What a pain in the butt! That's all I can say.
ReplyDeleteMore than you can ever know. But at least I get free credit reports from Experian for a year. Always a plus!
DeleteJay