Hackers May Have Stolen Californians' Data

Hackers May Have Stolen Californians' Data
By RACHEL KONRAD, AP Technology Writer

Tuesday, February 15, 2005


(02-15) 17:31 PST SAN FRANCISCO, (AP) --


A company that collects consumer data warned thousands of Californians that hackers penetrated the company's computer network and may have stolen credit reports, Social Security numbers and other sensitive information.


ChoicePoint Inc., which sells such data to government agencies and a variety of companies, acknowledged Tuesday that several hackers broke into its computer database and purloined data from as many as 35,000 Californians.


Last fall, hackers apparently used stolen identities to create what appeared to be legitimate businesses seeking ChoicePoint accounts, said Chuck Jones, a spokesman for Alpharetta, Ga.-based company. They opened about 50 accounts.


The attack appears to have resulted in at least six cases of identity theft in Los Angeles County. It's unclear whether the data of people outside California was exposed. But law enforcement agents, who have arrested one person on six counts of theft, say hundreds of thousands of Americans elsewhere may be at risk.

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/02/15/financial/f173127S20.DTL

The Florida list/vote scrubbing company?

Either way, they should be liable. But with the new class action laws, well....

Apparently, CA has laws requiring notification to the victims of the theft.

Other states may not not have such laws, and so none of their citizens will be notified if their info was stolen.

They had contracts with the FBI. Depending on what was stolen, the hackers could have gotten a ton of info.

It's just that the other 49 states don't require any sort of notification when a company fucks up your personal financial information.