Ohio’s state government places a value on personal information

The latest in the string of embarrassing data breaches involves the state of Ohio whose officials allowed a storage device to be stolen from a car.

This story keeps getting worse as at first it was thought that only 64,000 state employees personal information was on the device, but now they are realizing that a few hundred thousand Ohioan’s information was also on the device. Depending on the source the number varies from 200k to 500k. No matter what it ends up being it is a PR nightmare for the state government and elected officials.

At to add more embarrassment to the situation the person who had it stolen was an intern.
To me an intern is a student or a recently graduated individual who is now working for the state government as an apprentice to learn the ropes, the rules, gain exposure, acquire experience, and even earn college credits. In other words, a rookie.

So with all of the people that work in the state government, an intern is chosen to carry the storage device as a security measure to have copies of data in case something terrible happens. It just didn’t cross anyone’s mind that they were not paying attention to the security of the data at both ends. And something did happen, just not at the end they were expecting.

So with all of the concern about protecting this information they hand it over to an intern who leaves it in a car (by some accounts unlocked) and it disappears. Did the intern even know what they were taking home? Did anyone bother to tell the intern? What was the value of that information on the device if it could be handed over for safekeeping to an intern? The state must have felt it was very little since they gave it to the lowest person on the ladder. But now the value is starting to mount as the state is already spending hundreds of thousands on services to protect individuals and that is just the start.

If whoever took that device does crack into it successfully and spreads the wealth of information all over the internet, you can be assured that institutions that will start to bear the brunt of costs associated with this will surely look to the state for restitution.

Ohio is now falling into the same path as millions of Americans who do not bother to take pro-active steps, but then spend millions on reactions once a breach occurs.

Fraud Alert Gives False Sense of Security

Recently in a local community a laptop belonging to a county agency was stolen from a community center that had the names and personal information of 7,000 people who had applied for a state health insurance program dating back from 2003 to the present. It does not sound astonishing, but the community has about 45,000 people in it.

The county did do the right thing by disclosing it immediately; they fell extremely short when offering advice.

They told everyone who may be impacted by this to place a fraud alert on their credit report. They also mentioned providing credit monitoring.

Did they really understand what a fraud alert meant? Do they recognize that credit monitoring is an after the fact service?

A fraud alert is a notice you place on your credit report that technically REQUESTS additional verification by the lender with you personally when new credit is applied for.

Go into a store and request a store credit card, the lender who transacts credit for the store will check your credit report for viable credit. If there is a fraud alert on your account they have the OPTION of contacting you to verify that you have actually applied for credit at this store. Note the word OPTION, not mandatory nor legally required. If the lender cannot reach you at the phone numbers they have on file, they can go ahead and issue credit at their discretion.

So if everything works correctly for a thief they could obtain credit in your name despite a fraud alert. Remember it is at the lenders option and they want to issue credit, that is what they do. It only adds an optional extra step, but doe not guarantee a thief will not be able to open up an account in your name.

The name used for this notification is misleading. Local county officials thought it sounded like worthy all encompassing advice to offer to 7,000 victims.