NYPD Warns 80,000 Cops of Data Theft; Civilian Employee Arrested

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The NY Post is reporting that a civilian official of the NYPD's pension fund has been charged with taking computer data that could be used to steal the identities of 80,000 current and retired cops.

Anthony Bonelli allegedly got into a secret backup-data warehouse on Staten Island last month and walked out with eight tapes packed with Social Security numbers, direct-deposit information for bank accounts, and other sensitive material.

The Police Department's pension fund is sending out letters today to the 80,000 potential victims, warning them of what happened and offering help if their identities are stolen. More

According to ComputerWorld, the breach did not affect those hired after May 2007, because all data after that date is stored in encrypted form. Also not affected in the incident was any information relating to the undercover identities of NYPD officers, the alert said.

The breach highlights the well-documented risks that organizations face from rogue employees. Over the past several years, security experts have said that malicious insiders pose as much of a risk, if not an even greater one, to corporate data than external attackers do. Read more here.

Though their information has been compromised -they are not yet id theft victims -and it's not yet, too late to take proactive steps to lessen their risk of id theft -and the blow, should their information end up being traded or sold to multiple identity thieves in black market chat rooms!

If you think you may be affected by this (or any other) reported data breach, see earlier blog;

Are you one of the tens of millions to be notified your information is in the hands of thieves?




 

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