Fraud Flash for the week of September 8, 2008

Aug. 30, 2008
National Technical Institute for the Deaf Rochester Institute of Technology
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/rochester.laptop.stolen.2.806853.html
A recently stolen laptop contained the names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of about 12,700 applicants to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and another 1,100 people at Rochester Institute of Technology. The laptop belonged to an employee and was stolen on Monday from an office at NTID. People at RIT, who are not affiliated with NTID, are affected because their personal information was being used as part of a control group in an internal study.

Southwest Medical Association
http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=8925605&nav=menu102_2
Thousands of medical charts, all listed to Southwest Medical Association, became the property of a man who bought the contents of a storage unit for just $25 dollars in an auction.

Sept. 3, 2008
Oakland School District
http://www.mercurynews.com/alamedacounty/ci_10372819
Thieves broke into the Oakland school district’s human resources offices and stole up to 12 computers containing the personal information of an estimated 100 new hires.

Sept. 4, 2008
Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/portland_hiv_day_center_asks_f.html
A computer containing information for at least 350 HIV patients was stolen from the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon’s HIV Day Center.

Erie County Health Facility
http://www.wben.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=10751
The Erie County Executive’s office issued a statement about a laptop computer stolen from a county health facility.

Sept. 5, 2008
East Burke High School
http://www2.morganton.com/content/2008/sep/05/061845/east-burke-high-school-posted-163-staff-members-so/
For the past five years, East Burke High School's website exposed file s containing personal information including names, Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, job titles, email ad-dresses and unlisted phone numbers of teachers, bus drivers, custodians and other staff members on the Internet.

Newly reported incidents elsewhere:

In Japan:

Sept. 5, 2008
Hotta
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080905TDY02304.htm
The personal data of as many as 18,000 customers have been compromised after the server of Tokyo-based pet supply firm Hotta was accessed by a hacker in China.
About 3,000 cases of identity theft have been found among users of Yahoo Japan Corp.‘s online auction site. The total number of confirmed and suspected ID theft cases targeting the nation’s largest Internet auction site has reached about 10,000.

In Korea:

Sept. 6, 2008
GS Caltex
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=040000&biid=2008090631088
Two multimedia discs containing the personal information of 11.1 million customers of GS Caltex, one of Korea`s largest oil refineries, were reportedly found on the street, but now it appears to have been an insider job and the story just a coverup.

In the U.K.:

Sept. 2, 2008
The Aberdeen Press
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/scots_paper_privacy_snafu/
Scottish newspaper The Aberdeen Press inadvertently made it easy to harvest sensitive information about registered users from its site as a result of a basic information security mistake.

Sept. 5, 2008
NHS
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-8916.html
A memory stick containing information about the STI tests of 146 people has gone missing from the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital

Sept. 6, 2008
Ministry of Justice
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4692879.ece
A disk containing the personal details of 5,000 prison staff was lost by EDS last year, but the prison service wasn’t notified until this July.

Sept. 7, 2008
Royal Bank of Scotland
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/09/08/bank-details-safe-after-laptop-theft-91466-21698548/
A laptop containing the personal details of 100 bank customers was stolen from a Welsh branch of Royal Bank of Scotland in May, but customers had not been informed of the theft because the details held on the laptop were encrypted.

In Canada:

Sept. 6, 2008
Direct Cash Management Inc
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/city/story.html?id=c442f4a5-4deb-440b-85b0-c7329d76d063
Ehud Tenenbaum, an Israeli hacker who broke into U.S. Department of Defense computers as a teenager is the alleged mastermind of a $1.8-million theft from Direct Cash Management Inc. in Calgary.

In UAE:

Sept. 5, 2008
UAE Credit Network
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080904/NATIONAL/726459427
An international investigation is under way to find hackers believed to have stolen information from financial servers in the UAE to make fraudulent credit and debit card purchases in the US.