Washington, D.C. – A former State Department employee was sentenced today to one year of probation and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine for illegally accessing more than 50 confidential passport application files, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division announced. On Jan. 27, 2009, Gerald R. Lueders, 65, of Woodbridge, Va.,…
Category: Breaches
The SSN Study: Now What?
Since yesterday, when Alessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross of Carnegie Mellon University released a study demonstrating that it is relatively easy to predict an individual’s Social Security Number (SSN) using data from readily available public records, the security world has been buzzing. As someone who was given a draft copy of the paper to read…
Bombshell study: SSN relatively easy to predict
In a study that challenges current initiatives to reduce identity theft, researchers Alessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross of Carnegie Mellon University have released the results of a study showing how easily all nine digits of an individual’s Social Security Numbers can be accurately predicted from information that is readily available in numerous public databases. Based…
Pa. man on trail of identity thief
The unusual news of a Thomas Parkin caught in New York impersonating his dead mother to collect her Social Security struck Thomas Parkin of Plymouth Meeting uncomfortably close to home. Almost a decade ago, the Pennsylvania Parkin reported his identity stolen – and the pattern of fraudulent finances over the years turned out to match…