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Former Middletown School contractor accused of Laptop theft

December 5th, 2011

Not one or two but 400 laptops missing! A recent case of laptop theft saw 400 laptops being stolen from Middletown schools by a former contractor. A Butler County grand jury is currently reviewing the charges. If convicted, he faces 5 years prison time.

According to the Middletown police Larry A. Osborne Jr., 29,has been charged with third-degree felony theft on Nov. 9 in Middletown Municipal Court. He is accused of stealing computers since 2008. Osborne, a computer technician, was a former contractor of the Butler County Educational Service Center. The approximate value of the 400 laptops is $123,000. Osborne used to sell these computers on ebay. He sold around 350 computers to a man in PA who had no clue that these computers were stolen property. The PA man has not been charged. The machines were either used ones or non-working.

Former school contractor stole 400 laptops

The first theft was reported on Nov. 8 where eight Apple laptop computers were stolen from the district’s warehouse, 110 Baltimore St.

So far the department has recovered 46 of the 400 laptops. According to Lt. Scott Reeve. “The investigation is pretty much done. We’ve recovered all we’re going to recover,”. He further added that the thefts were discovered when the owner of 1 Stop Shipping Shop on Vail Avenue became suspicious about the no of computers Osborne was shipping. 18 laptops were recovered from 1 Stop Shipping Shop and 28 from Hallstead, PA. Lt. Reeve added “He wasn’t just taking them from one location,”. “He was taking them from multiple locations. I think that is part of the reason he got away with it for so long. He is an information technology guy and it’s not unusual to see him walking around with a computers in his hands, and they weren’t all being stolen from one location. He was spreading out the thefts at various schools throughout the district.”

Apparently Osborne was a full time IT worker with the district and lost his job a month ago when the theft came to light.

The modus operandi was that Osborne stole laptops that were left unattended while making service calls. Inspite of the fact that the district conducts general audits of its systems on an annual basis, the laptops were stole. The reason being Osborne was the employee in charge of this district.The district is revamping its security policy to make sure such thefts do not take place in the future.

Alertsec and data encryption go hand in hand

Information has become highly mobile. There are netbooks, laptops, iphones and blackberries. You leave any of these unattended and the next thing you know is that they are stolen!

To lose any of the above device means losing valuable information! Especially when this information includes not only your personal data but that of hundreds and thousands of people.

Encryption is the best security solution to data breaches and laptop thefts. Alertsec helps you keep your info secure.

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Posted in Computer security, Identity and Information loss, Lawsuits and settlements, computer security software, identity theft, laptop encryption, laptop theft

Tags: Apple Baltimore Counties Hardware Information Commissioners Office insurance laptop laptop theft LoJack Notebooks and Laptops security Theft United States

Mitsubishi Nuclear and Warplane data compromised

October 31st, 2011

Hackers don’t just hack small accounts like Hospital data or Software data. They get into big stuff like military and warplane data too!

According to Japanese Defense Ministry hackers have most probably accessed sensitive data relating to military aircraft, missiles, and nuclear power plant designs and safety systems.

The news in detail

Mitsubishi Heavy–Japan’s largest defense contractor is best known in America for manufacturing the surface-to-air Patriot missile.–In August it found out that multiple computers were infected with a Trojan application. Further investigation showed that the information had been sent outside the company’s computer network, clearly indicating an outsider’s involvement.

The computers were located in 11 different places. Some were placed in sensitive areas like the Kobe and Nagasaki shipyards that are into submarines and destroyers constructions. A few others were located at the Nagoya facility that manufactures guided missile systems. The nuclear data that was stolen included anti-quake measures.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was reluctant to share this info at first. It kept the Japanese authorities in dark stating that its military information was safe and that all security measures were followed. Initially the company said that the attackers were caught early on but later contradicted their own statement saying that data had been compromised.

Statement issued by the company

“The company recently confirmed unintended transferring of some information on the company’s products and technologies between servers within the company,” said Mitsubishi Heavy in a statement. “Based on the finding, the company investigated the incident further and recognized the possibility of some data leakage from the server in question.”

Other recent military data breaches

Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft, was a victim of military data theft recently. The Lockheed hack was done by using information stolen earlier from RSA Security. RSA is the branch of EMC that produces the SecurID two-factor authentication token used by thousands of contractors and corporations to secure their networks.

What are the Tokyo Police doing about it?

Mitsubishi Heavy has given a complaint to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department with details about damage done to its computer system in late September. The police are looking into computer records to find out the source of the data.

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The need of a Data encryption software and recovery software is felt by big and small companies in today’s vulnerable data world. The threat could have simply been reduced to an insurance matter by a mere investment of $13/month. Certainly a small price to pay compared to what can happen if you lose confidential or sensitive data. Alertsec Xpress offers a very good and easy-to-use laptop security service that includes more than the traditional software licensing model.

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Posted in Computer security, Data Protection, Hackers, Identity and Information loss, data breach, data encryption, identity theft

Tags: alertsec AlertSec Xpress checkpoint EMC Encryption Kobe Lockheed Martin Military aircraft Mitsubishi Mitsubishi Heavy Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Nagoya Nuclear power Personal computer security Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department United States

Coppers Cove: Police trying to track down laptop thief

October 21st, 2011

A great opportunity to make $1,000 ! Help the police track down Raheem Amaud Townsend, 21, and you are in for a reward!

Laptop thief from Copperas Cove on the run

Why is Raheem Amaud Townsend wanted by the police?

He is wanted in connection with the theft of the computers from 913 Davie Lee Street. Charges on him: misdemeanor and felony warrants. There is a strong possibility that he may have moved to another state.

How can you help?

Copperas Cove Police are reaching out to the community for locating a criminal in connection with two separate theft cases. Raheem Amaud Townsend is a resident og Copperas Cove and is alleged to have done away with two laptop computers from 913 Davie Lee Street in Copperas Cove on September 20th, 2011

Coppers Cove Police dept has offered tips related to the above case

The police would like to inform you that tips can be made anonymously through the Copperas Cove Crime Stoppers tip number (254)547-1111 .

Copperas Cove Crime Stoppers request you to help in locating the offender. Any information related to this case is valuable. Do not hesitate to get in touch with Crime Stoppers. They need your call today. Crime Stoppers are ready to pay up to $1,000.00 in cash if your information leads to the suspect. We will keep your name in the wraps. . Call Crime Stoppers today at (254)547-1111 or post a tip on-line at www.tipsubmit.com

What detectives have to say about laptop thefts in general?

Many people are under the impression that because laptops have serial numbers they can be traced as stolen property. This is a false sense of security. In real life very few stolen laptops are returned or traced.

Alertsec can save your laptops

Save your company from countless problems related to laptop thefts and data security down the road. Imagine one of your laptops containing all of your company’s current pricing structure, sales leads, and customer orders, were lost and there was no backup data! Or worse: what if your competitor got his hands on your data?

The fact that we now buy more laptops than desktops shows that the information we all store is increasingly more vulnerable to be exposed. It is a much higher risk to lose a laptop than a desktop computer.

The only way to protect information stored on a PC or laptop is by using encryption. Alertsec Xpress offers full disk encryption and is therefore superior to other encryption methods when comparing security, performance, robustness and ease-of-use for both administrators and users.

The following preventive measures can be done to increase laptop security and reduce damage if your laptop is lost or stolen:

a. Always have a fresh back-up on a server or back-up device

b. Use Laptop encryption

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Posted in Identity and Information loss, Lawsuits and settlements, Uncategorized, identity theft, laptop encryption, laptop theft

Tags: Copperas Cove Copperas Cove Texas Crimestoppers Fort Hood Harker Heights Texas IPhone laptop Law Law Enforcement Manchester Nolanville Texas Police Theft United States YouTube

TRICARE in trouble for data breach

October 11th, 2011

TRICARE data breach affects millions

Data breach incidents are on the rise and even though effects of some of them many not be that serious, data loss and identities are at stake.

A data breach involving personal health information of an estimated 4.9 million military clinic and hospital patients made headlines last week. The report was about Tricare Management Activity, the federal government’s health care coverage for active and retired military personnel and their families.

What Tricare had to say?

According to TRICARE the data was stolen from a backup system that contained electronic patient data from 1992 through Sept. 7, 2011 from patients that were treated at San Antonio area military treatment facilities (MTFs) (including the filling of pharmacy prescriptions) and some of them whose laboratory data was processed in these same MTFs although the patients had received treatment somewhere else.

A total of 4.9 million patient’s documents were affected. The stolen data includes Social Security numbers, addresses and phone numbers, and some personal health data. Fortunately no financial data, such as credit card or bank account information was compromised.

The incident is still under investigation and it could take anywhere between 4 to 6 weeks for Tricare to notify those who have been affected by the breach. Tricare further stated that the risk of harm to patients is fairly low. Affected Tricare beneficiaries will receive personalized letters with details about the data breach.

In the past Tricare contractors had received free credit monitoring but in this case TRICARE has not promised anything.

TRICARE releases statement

“Reading the tapes takes special machinery. Moreover, it takes a highly skilled individual to interpret the data on the tapes. Since we do not believe the tapes were taken with malicious intent, we believe the risk to beneficiaries is low.”

How was the data stolen?

The data was stolen from the car of an employee of Science Applications International Corp. It contained backup tapes of electronic health records. According to the police report the car was parked at 300 Convent from 7:53 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sept. 13. Along with the backup tapes a stereo system valued at $300 and a GPS device were stolen.

Apparently the employee was planning to transport this data between federal facilities.

According to a SAIC spokesman the data was partially encrypted.

What users had to say?

“The fact that the tapes were encrypted should go to show how important it is to keep the information safe. That is not a way for the Govt employee or contractor transporting to feel safer about leaving them unattended in a vehicle. Had this happened in the military equivalent with secret media, they would be run through. The lack of disciplinary action is somewhat disturbing”.

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Posted in Computer security, Data Protection, Uncategorized, data breach, data encryption

Tags: data breach Electronic health record Encryption Facilities Health Health care Hospital Medicine Personally identifiable information SAIC San Antonio Science Applications International Corp Social Security number TRICARE Tricare Management Activity United States

Former senior analyst for Countrywide Home Loans behind bars for data theft

September 29th, 2011

It is not only the poverty-stricken folks who steal data in order to make money. High-salaried, well-to-do personnel are trying their hands at stealing too ! The money made by sellers of stolen personal data continues to be high. Credit card information is the most sought data as it generates $0.06 to $30.00 per record.

The recent case of data theft involves a former senior analyst for Countrywide Home loans.

The case of Rene Rebollo

A former senior analyst for Countrywide Home Loans was sentenced Wednesday in connection with data theft and for selling personal data of some 2.5 million customers in a scam that in turn cost the mortgage lender some $30 million. U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder sentenced Rene to eight months in prison. He is also expected to serve 10 months in a community correctional facility. In addition, Rene will also have to pay $1.2 million in restitution to Countrywide, now Bank of America. He also cannot access further customer data.

Data theft took place in the year 2008

Rene was charged in 2008 for downloading company data, planning an elaborate scam to steal customer information and selling it to loan officers from other companies. He had access to many of Countrywide’s databasesthat held information about clients from different parts of the United States.

He downloaded and stored reports on pen drives and distributed financial information and contact information of about 2.5 million people. In addition, he sold Social Security numbers of some 50,000 people. He opened a bank account for depositing money that he made from data selling. As if this was not enough, he sold the information to Wahid Siddiqi, 28, from Thousand Oaks, for $500 and earned around $50,000. The men sold the identity batches for $500 a piece.

Rene had pleaded not guilty but in January changed his mind to guilty.

As far as Siddiqi is concerned, he is jailed for 3 years since pleading guilty to fraud and selling the information to third parties.

How did Countrywide react?

Countrywide spent $1.2 million notifying customers whose data was compromised. It spent another $15.75 million to provide free credit monitoring to these customers. It also spent $13.4 million in civil litigation, that included class action lawsuits. Bank of America settled the suits last year.

The question is – How did an IT Audit miss such a big breach?

Data security with Alertsec

Following the essential guidelines is very necessary for data security in any organization. This news exemplifies the need for data protection applications. In an incident, which highlights the need of Data encryption software and recovery software, the threat could have simply been reduced to an insurance matter by a mere investment of $13/month. The information would have been secure with no loss what so ever. That is certainly a small price to pay compared to what can happen if you lose confidential or sensitive data. Alertsec Xpress offers a very good and easy-to-use laptop security. There are no short cuts to Data security in any organization. Alertsec offers ervice that includes more than the traditional software licensing model.