It’s another data breach. With the regularity of personal information being compromised, it no longer is surprising news:

“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.”

link: Data Lost on 650,000 Credit Card Holders

These are becoming regular occurrences. For example, the people of Wisconsin have experienced three data breaches in a short period of time. These security issues involve hundreds of thousands of people. It is becoming a matter of ‘when’ your personal information will be compromised. The safest course of action seems to be freezing one’s credit history and taking preventative action. Assume that your personal information has been compromised - or soon will be part of a security lapse.

Catherine Forsythe
Director of Operations
FlyingHamster:  http://flyinghamster.com/

[tag]data breach, privacy, security, identity theft, wisconsin, j.c. penney, credit freeze[/tag]