Data Lost on 650,000 Credit Card Holders by General Electric

[Dig]

Data Lost on 650,000 Credit Card Holders by General Electric
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iZchJDcVnuQDNPJsok2PSPr5vwRQD8U823R03
By DAVID KOENIG – 9 hours ago

PLANO, Texas (AP) — Personal information on about 650,000 customers of J.C. Penney and up to 100 other retailers could be compromised after a computer tape went missing. GE Money, which handles credit card operations for Penney and many other retailers, said Thursday night that the missing information includes Social Security numbers for about 150,000 people. The information was on a backup computer tape that was discovered missing last October. It was being stored at a warehouse run by Iron Mountain Inc., a data storage company, and was never checked out but can't be found either, said Richard C. Jones, a spokesman for GE Money, part of General Electric Capital Corp. Jones said there was "no indication of theft or anything of that sort," and no evidence of fraudulent activity on the accounts involved. Iron Mountain spokesman Dan O'Neill said it would take specialized skills for someone to glean the personal data from the tape. He said the company regretted losing the tape, "but because of the volume of information we handle and the fact people are involved, we have occasionally made mistakes." Penney said it had been told of the situation and referred further inquiries to GE Money. Jones declined to identify the other retailers whose customers' information is missing but said "it includes many of the large retail organizations." Jones said GE Money was paying for 12 months of credit-monitoring service for customers whose Social Security numbers were on the tape. Incidents like this add to consumer concern about fraud. The Identity Theft Resource Center says there was a six-fold increase last year in the number of records reported compromised in the United States — to 125 million. Data breaches can stem from hacking, as well as the physical loss or theft of computers of data storage equipment. TJX Cos., owner of the T.J. Maxx and Marshalls retail chains, reported last year that tens of millions of credit and debit card owners were exposed to fraud when hackers stole data while it was being transmitted wirelessly. It took GE Money two months to reconstruct the missing tape and identify the people whose information was lost. Since December, the company has been notifying consumers in batches of several thousand and telling them to phone a call center set up to deal with the breach. The notification is expected to be completed next week. Penney's card holder Elizabeth Rich of Everett, Wash., got one of the GE Money letters saying her name, address and account number may have been compromised. She was told her Social Security number was not on the tape. The letter, signed by GE Money President Brent P. Wallace, read in part, "We have no reason to believe that anyone has accessed or misused your information. The pieces of information on the tape would not be enough to open new accounts in your name, and we have implemented internal monitoring to protect your account number from misuse due to this incident." Wallace said in the letter that Penney "was in no way responsible for this incident." The Penney name didn't appear on the envelope Rich received, and she thought it was a credit solicitation when she saw the GE Money return address. "I think the average consumer has thrown away that GE Money letter because they don't know it's about J.C. Penney," Rich said. "Not everybody opens junk mail." Rich said she canceled her Penney card immediately.

[bettybrabb]

I just wanted to share with people out there, My neice and a friend of mine have had their idenity stolen from them as well.  It will take 10 Yrs. to clear it up. and the police can't do anything about it. Because there are so many now each and every day they can't keep up, with it.  My friend told me that today she has to spend several hours on the phone with the police to try and get a reports and to make everyone aware about here credithas gone down the tubes. It seems as though they take it lightly, and she is highly upset about it. and you can't blame her nor my neice.  Here is something they have wored hard for to get their credit astablished so they could have good credit and it has been ruined by aperson who is using there name and ss no. and have done it illegally. It's going to take time to clear the mess up.

[bettybrabb]

something else I had forgot to include in.  They both had to contact the credit bureaus and let them know what happened,
so now when thoes people go and try to get credit in there name the company will contact them and ask them if they are applying for credit and if not they have thoes who stole there idenity.  What is happening in this world of ours now of days

[Overcast]

Iron Mountain spokesman Dan O'Neill said it would take specialized skills for someone to glean the personal data from the tape.

lol

Special Skills... meaning.. You need to know what software was used to backup the data - Backup Exec, Tivoli, Arcserve, etc..
Then you simply restore the data. Tape backup software usually has a 'catalog' option that will tell you what's on the tape.

Then you just look into the database. Shouldn't be too difficult, for someone so inclined.

Let's say this much - if someone took the tape with the intention of getting customer data - you could expect first off, that the person knows well it's on that tape. Toss into that equation - I bet GE has Thousands of Servers - odd that someone got the right tape?

It could well just be lying on the floor somewhere or in another box - but if someone did take it, I'm willing to bet they already posses those ever elusive 'special skills'.

[Overcast]

Outta morbid curiosity - I did a search and managed to find what backup software GE Capital uses.. lol (note the time between the posts, it didn't take long at all - under 10 minutes)

http://www.peersoftware.com/customer/clients.aspx

They are listed as a customer. So it's a good place to start. It may be common for different servers to use different backup software, but taking into consideration the number of records in the 'database', I would suspect it's not just a small site server...

In Checking GE's page - I find this is the case: "GE Money is a trade name of GE Consumer Finance, Inc., a subsidiary of General Electric Capital Corporation."

So... yeah, takes some "special" skills, uh huh.


But to that - I really think all these 'lost data' cases are nothing but a bunch of hype. Perhaps some of you with a good memory can recall the hype in the 80's - about how much 'safer' credit cards would make your money. Time has most clearly proven this is not the case at all. It used to be - if someone wanted to steal money from you, they would have to take it with force - now some lazy guy halfway across the world can clean you out - much more efficiently than any common thug.

So my prediction is that it's propaganda that will later be used to show us how 'insecure' our current system is and why we need a new 'secure' system to replace it. I assume an implanted chip coupled with biometric data would work very nicely, huh?

Worst part is - by that time, people will begin to blindly trust the soon-coming 'infallible' system. Then when people *do* steal, they will turn the crime around on the victim, telling them 'that's impossible'.

[Anti_Illuminati]

My opinion on this is that this was an inside job, on various sites several years ago based on what I learned and internalized, I posted my determinations that Identity Fraud will start to be carried out by the NWO.  I am not saying that ID fraud isn't possible by "real hackers" operating on their own and only for themselves, but there is more to this.

Incidents like this add to consumer concern about fraud. The Identity Theft Resource Center says there was a six-fold increase last year in the number of records reported compromised in the United States — to 125 million.

Yeah because this is one of the main vehicles they will use to PUSH THE NEED into the minds of sheep that they need RealID--brainwashing them into thinking that it will prevent or make ID fraud/theft harder to pull off--100% PsyOps, it will do nothing to prevent that.
 

Data breaches can stem from hacking, as well as the physical loss or theft of computers of data storage equipment.

Or they can stem from purposeful violations of security to allow a theft to take place.  On another note, many (if not most) companies do not want nor like spending much money on multi-layered, effective security solutions nor experts in the security field.  They come with a high price tag (salary), and most companies would rather wait until something bad happens and then do something about it afterwards instead of preemptively anticipating continually evolving threats and adapting to them on the fly.

True security flies in the face of "the bottom line" for corporations.  But that being said, I personally believe that the NWO has hired truly expert hackers, and is paying them to carry out elaborate, albeit untraceable, ID fraud/theft (already well known--i.e. election fraud, Diebold, et.al).

Bottom line on how they need to sell RealID (I'm afraid) is:  Massive false flag attack, and the scapegoat will be twofold:

1)  Chertoff and the gang will be splattered all over MSM shouting that America got attacked because of all the resistance to RealID, (there's already a video of him saying this, but he pretends it's going to be MSM "Alqueda" (or "homegrown", or Pakistan, et.al) instead of HIMSELF and Al-CIA-DUH) that "YOU THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, ARE THE REASON WE GOT ATTACKED BECAUSE YOU HELD US UP".

They will say that RealID could have identified the "terrorist" before he could have carried out the attack, replete with tons of faked scientific data, fake/staged similar attacks
"THWARTED" in other countries so they can say:  "SEE, ISRAEL (or the UK/Australia) OVER HERE HAS THIS, AND THEY CAUGHT SOMEONE BEFORE IT WAS CARRIED OUT"--BULLf**kINGSHIT CHERTOFF.

2)  After the attack, groups deemed most dangerous to facilitating the TRUTH from surfacing more and more to the forefront will selectively be targeted and propagandized and the rest of the population will largely CHEER ON their imprisonment, and everything else that comes after that.

ID Theft is bullshit, and there are many ways that it could actually be literally made almost non-existent, but the NWO would not approve of this.

[Overcast]

Yes, or a multi-tiered type of scenario....
Where an Identity Theft helps an 'entity' successfully carry out an 'attack' on something/somewhere.

That would be a prime situation to push this, rather than a 'blame' incident. A Blame situation, like them blaming the lack of 'RealID' as the cause, might not be as effective, as it might still be open to debate.

A situation where someone obtains some device, materials, access - or any other type of compromise on a security system because it wasn't a 'strong enough access control system' would be ideal for them indeed.

Something to watch for.

It could be someone masquerading as a pilot, or gains access to a government facility, or something of that nature with a 'fake id'.

Giving a strong case indeed for a 'computerized' and 'infallible' security system to be implemented.

What they really want, in the end - is a RFID implementation world wide that includes an implanted chip that couples computer security with biometric data, to prevent the chips from being simply extracted and taped to someone's arm. After all - if a thief wants 'Rich Bob's' money, all he'd need to do is dig the chip out of his lifeless arm, tape it to his and go to town.

But, if the chip was linked to a database - which also included a fingerprint, for example - it would be far, far harder to get past. Creating a need for not only the computer chip to be present, but matching biometric data as well.