http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... 5Mar9.html

LexisNexis Reports Theft of Personal Data

By Jonathan Krim and Robert O'Harrow, Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 9, 2005; 11:08 AM

Identity thieves have compromised another company that collects and sells personal information on millions of U.S. consumers, the latest in a series of breaches that is throwing a spotlight on the practices and safeguards of a booming data-collection industry.

LexisNexis, a worldwide leader in global legal and business data, announced that data on 32,000 consumers was fraudulently gathered in a series of incidents. The data includes names, addresses, Social Security and drivers' license numbers.


The breaches occurred at the company's recently acquired Seisint subsidiary, a Florida firm that sells data amassed from extensive public-records searches to law-enforcement agencies, businesses, private investigators and others.

"LexisNexis very much regrets this and will be notifying all the individuals concerned and providing them with ongoing credit monitoring and practical support to ensure that any identity theft is quickly detected and addressed," the company said in a press release.

Early this morning, a company spokesman said it is not clear where the breaches originated, or who committed them. The company is working with the Secret Service, and said it already has changed some of its procedures.

The announcement comes just weeks after a LexisNexis competitor, ChoicePoint Inc., revealed an even larger security lapse that enabled fraud artists posing as legitimate businessmen in Los Angeles to access personal information about at least 145,000 people around the country. Investigators are exploring whether the suspect in that case also compromised LexisNexis and other information services.

The ChoicePoint announcement, and several other recent breaches, has touched off a firestorm of criticism and spurred plans for an array of hearings about the information industry on Capitol Hill. Tomorrow, those hearings begin in the Senate Banking Committee.

LexisNexis Group acquired Seisint last summer for $775 million in cash. At the time, Seisint was best known as the company behind a counter-terrorism supercomputer called the Matrix, which enabled law enforcement and intelligence authorities to blend investigative files with 20 billion public records.

Seisint, short for seismic intelligence, was begun by the same entrepreneur who formed DBT Online, the public records powerhouse sold to ChoicePoint in 2000. In buying Seisint last summer, LexisNexis aimed to compete more aggressively with ChoicePoint for lucrative homeland security and law enforcement contracts. Seisint's main product is Accurint, a service that markets the possibility of giving police, private investigators, lawyers and others access into every corner of society.

"Instantly FIND people, their assets, their relatives, their associates, and more," the company's marketing material said. "Search the entire country for less than the cost of a phone call -- a quarter."

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said the LexisNexis breach underscores the need for a broad examination of the information industry, which he called for recently. Leahy said planned hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), should include close scrutiny of the relationship between the government and Seisint, ChoicePoint and other information contractors -- and the national security implications.

"If criminals can breach the security of private brokers, then terrorists may be able to, also," said Leahy, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

woohoo, great

I use Westlaw.

I love the Senator's brilliant comment at the end.

I swear to God they're all such out-of-touch douchebags. Every last motherfuckin' one of 'em.

Half of them couldn't put an intelligent thought together without the bullet points put together by some underpaid staffer.

I use Westlaw, JSTOR, and LexisNexis, but I use a proxy so no one can ever touch me ever (seriously don't touch me, nothing gives you that right).

Perhaps its time to for these companies to get very serious with hackers.

The Secret Service and FBI doesn't mess around with them. These companies need to spend more time and money on anti piracy, and get tough with these hacker losers.

*Touches.*

Jesus Christ. This is really becomming a problem. Paris Hilton was funny, ha ha ha, but this is a lot of people we're dealing with here who aren't talentless whores.

I just realized that the problem we could have really soon because of theft like this is largely related to intellectual property, I am no longer taking this set of circumstances so lightly because this could be a geniune concern for those of us who care to do all our own research.