Data Leaks

8,4 Million Stolen Accounts Bring $580,000

And approximately 10 years in prison

By Bogdan Popa, Security and Search Engines Editor

4th of December 2007, 10:14 GMT

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William Gary Sullivan, a database administrator working for Fidelity National Information Services, obtained approximately $580,000 in five years after getting the

details of about 8.4 million accounts and selling them to other firms. The man was working for Certegy Check Services, a subsidiary of FNIS, when he accessed the database in order to get all sorts of details, the Channel Register

has reported today. He got access to "individuals' names, addresses and financial account information," the same source continued. After stealing the details, he sold them to other companies, from which he recorded a profit of about $580,000.

The Channel Register informs that the entire illegal operation was discovered in July, when FNIS said that an employee ran away with 2.3 million accounts details. "Fidelity was alerted to the theft by a retail customer, who noticed a "correlation between a small number of check transactions and the receipt by the retailer's customers of direct telephone solicitations and mailed marketing materials", the source added.

Recently, the schemes powered by the employees or the attacks enhanced by the negligent officials have become pretty popular and, most important, very dangerous for everyone of us. Just look at the HMRC data loss and you'll know what I mean. The information of about 25 million residents was put at risk, after some CDs containing their details were sent to another department. Because they didn't reach the destination, the officials were worried that they might fall into criminal hands.

A few days ago, another data loss has been reported, after an employee took his workstation at home and connected the computer to the Internet. Since the system contained very important information concerning the HIV and the hepatitis status of numerous residents, the data loss could have extremely dangerous consequences. The identity theft is just one of them, but most attackers could hide their real identities by using stolen details and launch malicious attacks over the web.

TAGS:

money | security | fnis

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