There is a serious threat to the data of customers in organizations worldwide. Apparently this is the data that contains information about their names, ages, social security number etc. As IT systems become an inherent part of organization’s assets with that we are also witnessing increase in incidents reporting data loss. The impact of this data loss is huge leading to financial implications.

The latest casualty are customers of Countrywide financial. The disturbed customers of Countrywide Financial have filed a class-action lawsuit over the 2008 data breach that enabled company insiders to steal and sell their personal information. According to a Courthouse News Service report, the class-action lawsuit on behalf of 16 plaintiffs seeks $20 million in damages, plus punitive damages.

The data theft was originally attributed to a single employee working over a two-year-period has now exposed tens of thousands of customer records. According to the lawsuit alleges that Countrywide Financial employees have stolen and sold “tens of thousands, or millions” of customers’ personal financial information.

While going through one of the news-stories, we discovered the letter that was sent to the customers. Here is a copy of the letter:

According to the lawsuit the defendants were slow to admit the massive breaches of confidentiality, and offered little or not support. The complaint stated, “Countrywide delayed several months before informing their customers.” “Finally, Countrywide informed only certain of their customers by letter and offered in settlement to refer the customers/borrowers to counseling, when it was Countrywide that needed to review and repair its internal procedures.”

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