Monday Morning News Kick Off: Rise in Child ID Theft; Cyber Insurance Boom; and Medical Data Breaches Affected More Than 10 Million Americans

Welcome to the Monday Morning News Kick Off post from the ITAC blog.  We hope everyone had a restful holiday weekend.  Though as we all know — that although it is technically a holiday week — the world of cybercrime does not slow down.  That is why we have been kind enough to pull together all the key identity theft, data breach and cyber security stories you need in one convenient location.  Happy Monday!

Rise In Child Identity Theft Prompts Push For Solutions
When Jennifer Andrushko applied for public aid two years ago, a state employee entered her son Carter’s Social Security number into a computer and discovered something strange: The boy appeared to have been earning wages for the past eight years. “I thought, ‘How could this be happening? He’s only three years old,’” Andrushko said. It turned out an undocumented immigrant had been using Carter’s number to acquire jobs since before he was born. But Carter proved relatively fortunate. Unlike many child identity theft victims who do not realize their credit is ruined until they reach adulthood, his case was caught while he was young, giving him time to recover his good name. Read the full Huffington Post article here.

Lax Security Exposes Voice Mail to Hacking, Study Says
It may be tempting to view the illegal interception of telephone voice mails, a practice that has roiled Britain and the News Corp. media empire of Rupert Murdoch, as an arcane tool employed by scofflaw journalists with friends in Scotland Yard. But according to a study to be presented Tuesday, cellphone users in Europe and the rest of the world may be just as vulnerable as the actor Hugh Grant and other celebrities to having their personal voice mail hacked — or worse — because of outdated mobile network security. Read more from the NY Times here.

Insurance Against Cyber Attacks Expected to Boom
Sony is still awaiting the final tally for losses related to its data breaches earlier this year. At last count, it had compromised 100 million customer accounts, and Sony anticipated the debacle would cost $200 million. With 58 class-action suits in the works, that may be wishful thinking. Now for the really bad news: Sony’s losses aren’t insured. In a lawsuit, Sony’s insurer, the Zurich American Insurance Company, reminded the company it does not own a cyber insurance policy. Sony’s policy only covers tangible losses like property damage, not cyber incidents. Read more from the NY Times here.

Stratfor Targeted by Hacking Group Anonymous
he loosely-associated band of hackers known as Anonymous claims to have targeted the global intelligence think tank Strategic Forecasting, known as Stratfor, boasting on the microblogging site Twitter that personal information, including credit card numbers, belonging to Stratfor clients had been stolen. As of Monday morning, Stratfor’s Website was down, with a placeholder page saying the site was undergoing maintenance and asking visitors to “check back soon.” Read more from eWeek here.

Medical Data Breaches Affected More Than 10 Million Americans In 2011
2011 has been a bad year for medical data breaches. The medical records of more than ten million Americans were exposed this year. The San Diego-based Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has issued a list of this year’s six most significant data breaches. The insurer Health Net suffered one of the worst, when nine data servers went missing from a Northern California data center in January. The servers contained records of nearly two million current and former policy holders. Read more from KPBS here.

Enterprise Data Breaches: Insider Threats That Cause Most Losses
Organizations are beefing up their network and data defenses to protect sensitive information and intellectual property from attackers. But enterprise management often forgets that their own employees and contractors can also pose a threat. A recent Symantec report found that approximately 65 percent of malicious data thieves are on their way out the door to join a competitor or start their own company. More than half of the data theft occurs within a month before an employee’s departure, according to the study. Check out more from eWeek here.