Bisys Group has lost backup tapes containing the private data of 61,000 clients, and ADP Inc. has admitted it leaked the personal details of at least 140,000 investors. According to experts at InfoWatch, today data breaches have become such a regular occurrence that it is possible to talk of an epidemic.
Two US finance companies have announced the loss of private data belonging to their hedge fund and brokerage clients.
Bisys Group announced the loss of backup tapes containing the personal details of about 61,000 hedge fund clients. The data was lost during transportation on June 8 when the truck carrying the tapes was stolen. The information, which was on its way from a New Jersey-based Bisys business unit to a specialized storage facility, included the Social Security numbers of 35,000 people. Police recovered the vehicle two days later, but most of the removable items had been taken, including the tapes containing the sensitive data.
On July 6 Automatic Data Processing, which specializes in payroll processing and tax filing, said that it gave lists of shareholders to individuals posing as corporate officers. The information obtained from the Ankeny, Iowa-based company included the names, addresses and phone numbers of individual investors. It was noted, however, that Social Security numbers and account numbers were not compromised. Fidelity Investments said the private details of at least 125,000 of its clients were breached, with UBS and Morgan Stanley stating that 10,000 and 3,800 of their clients respectively were affected. ADP said it provided the shareholder lists between November 2005 and February 2006. The company added that the information would not allow unauthorized people to trade in the accounts.
“Announcements and reports of new data leaks appear virtually every day. The number of incidents is frightening. It would not be an exaggeration to say that today business is suffering an epidemic of breaches. In all fields of commerce where there is confidential or private information, companies are incurring losses that are far from trivial. It will continue until businesses take the problem seriously and adopt effective measures to safeguard against leaks,” warns Denis Zenkin, marketing director at InfoWatch.
Source: InvestmentNews.com