The financers of kids’ college educations are doing it too!

A contractor for the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan company lost 1.3 million names and SSNs when a piece of equipment (which was not identified - meaning it was a laptop left in the front seat of a parked car), was stolen. The incident happened May 24th, the TGSL was notified two days later. The notice included a statement about the data being encrypted, then decrypted, followed by a “well the machine needs password access” - why didn’t they just say everyone listed in the database is now completely screwed?

While there is growing concern over phishing and hacking exploits that lead to identity theft, the fact remains that you are safer online that you are with personal acquaintances.

Javelin Strategy and Research just released a report that suggests roughly 9% of all ID theft activity comes from the online activities, while more than 30% comes from losing credit cards and other personal affects. The study continues by saying more than 70% of all fraudulent activity is perpetrated in the offline world.

I may not buy into the idea that the whole mess is on the decline, but I do know this: nobody hacked into phone company databases to get phone call records - it was social engineering as far as most can see right now; nobody hacked into a big data warehouse to steal hundreds of thousands of personal data records - it was an “I’m a big customer, so give me those records” deal; and nobody hacked into a financial advisory firm - someone left their laptop full of account information in a parked car.