207,000 Marines Now on Guard for Identity Theft

In what, by now, may seem to be a never ending story -
another portable drive was lost containing highly
sensitive personal data. This time, though, it was
not just regular consumers, but the U.S. Marines.

207,750 of them to be exact.

Evidently, earlier this month a portable disk
drive was lost containing the following
confidential data for enlisted Marines who
were on active duty fromJanuary, 2001
to December, 2005:

• Social security number
• Marital status
• Enlistment contract details

Although, the data was encrypted, the Marine
Corp has advised those notified to place a
fraud alert on their credit file as well as
to get a free credit report to check for any
evidence of identity theft.

So, our tip for today, is contact any friends
or family members who were Marines during that
time period and let them know they would be
wise to guard against identity theft by minimally
checking their credit report.

Better yet, for the toughest branch of the military,
it's appropriate to get monitoring beyond a single
credit report snapshot as identity theft can happen
months after the data has been lost.