Monday Morning News Kick Off: Countrywide Data Breach Settlement Gets Preliminary Approval; 1 in 6 Mass. Residents Victims of ID Theft and More

Welcome to the very first Monday Morning News Kick Off post on the ITAC Identity blog. The purpose of this post is to provide an actionable summary of the all the latest news and headlines that pertain to identity theft, data breaches and cyber security. There is certainly no shortage of news to highlight out there. This week’s post covers the Countrywide Financial Corp. settlement, as well as sober statistics about Massachusetts residents (1 in 6) being victims of fraud and identity theft. As always, if you have some news you want to share, please email us at pressideas (at) itacidentityblog.com, and feel free to post your comments and opinions.

ID Theft Settlement Gets Preliminary Approval
A federal judge has given preliminary approval to a settlement between Countrywide Financial Corp., and millions of customers whose detailed financial information was exposed in a security breach. Under the terms of the settlement, Countrywide, now owned by Bank of America, would give up to 17 million people whose information was exposed during the security breach free credit monitoring. That group includes anyone who obtained a mortgage and anyone who used Countrywide to service a mortgage prior to July 1, 2008. Read the full ABC News story here.

Data Breaches Affect Million State Residents
One million Massachusetts residents – or 1 in 6 people – have had their credit card numbers, medical records, or other personal information leaked or stolen over the past two years, according to records provided to the Globe by state officials. Many thousands of the leaks were first reported between June and November – including confidential data on customers of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Eastern Bank, JPMorgan Chase Bank, and other major institutions, documents released by state regulators revealed. The breaches occurred in a variety of forms, including theft of laptop computers and the loss of a computer data tape. But most involved successful hacker attacks on computer centers, where large amounts of personal data are stored. Read the full Boston Globe story here.

NYC Woman Pleads Guilty to Stealing Another Woman’s Identity and Using it to Get Married
A Manhattan medical assistant has admitted stealing a stranger’s identity and using it to get married in the other woman’s name. Aracelis Cherico (uh-RAYS’-lihs chur-EE’-koh) pleaded guilty Wednesday to identity theft in a scheme that has kept her victim from getting a marriage license. Cherico admitted she used Sara Benitez’s information for years, including when Cherico wed in 1992. In recent years, Cherico has filed tax returns in Benitez’s name to get more than $2,600 in refunds. Read the full AP article here.

Medical Identity Theft: Fastest Growing Fraud Can be Deadly
While you’re probably well aware of identity theft and its impact on your credit, you may not be aware of a type of identify theft that can be even more harmful to you personally — medical identity theft. You may not only end up with bills incurred by the person who steals your identity, but the crime can even prove fatal. When someone uses your identity, incorrect information gets into your medical files. When you seek care you can end up with the wrong medical history, wrong blood type, wrong allergies and other errors that could end up being deadly for you. Read the full blog post from WalletPop here.

Governor Paterson Enacts New State Laws on New Year’s Day
New York State has twelve new laws that took affect Friday on New Year’s Day. Governor David Paterson said, “2010 will bring with it new laws on the books in New York State. Among them, the enactment of the new Tier V pension plan – the first substantive pension reform in a quarter century that takes a critical step toward making our government more accountable to taxpayers.” He added, “With the New Year, we also increase protections for our State’s consumers, and strengthen the laws against identity theft that will help make New York safer and healthier for a prosperous 2010.” Read the full article from WKTV here.

RockYou Sued Over Data Breach
An Indiana man sent a popular social networking app maker a great big “piece of flair” yesterday — in the form of a class-action lawsuit. Alan Claridge sued RockYou, creators of spamtastic Facebook and MySpace apps like “Pieces of Flair” and “SuperWall,” after the company admitted to having lost over 30 million individuals’ personal identification data to a hacker. The incident — one of 2009’s top data disasters — went unacknowledged by RockYou for almost two weeks. Read the full PC World article here.