SSN Identity Hack of 1.3 Million Chicago Voters
"Vote early and often" has been a Chicago
humorous poke at the city's past reputation
for rigged elections. With the recent admission,
by a civic organization, of their recently successful
penetration of the entire voter database, no one
in Chicago is laughing now.
It seems, 1.3 million Chicagoan's voter records have been
compromised by the unauthorized access from the Illinois
Ballet Integrity Project which describes itself as a
not for profit civic organization dedicated to the
correction of election system deficiences.
What planet are these folks operating from?
Aren't they aware that accessing a database of
a government, although a city, is tantamount to
breaking and entering which is usually a crime?
But, when the database which was illegally accessed
includes the highly sensitive information of consumers
this self described "civic" organization has most
minimally crossed an ethical line by committing a
public disservice. Most likely, though, they've
committed an serious error which is tantamount
to identity theft.
Here's why.
The sensitive information contained within the
Chicago registered voter database included:
- Social Security Numbers (ssn)
- Date of Birth (dob)
While this civic group claims they only accessed
the database to prove their point, who's to believe
those 1,3000,000 social security numbers have not
been compromised.
Would you bet your financial future and
family's well being on it?
So, our tip for today is for all of those 1.3
million registered voters in Chicago to seek
protection. Get yourself enrolled in any
quality credit monitoring service to
prevent the abuse of identity theft & credit fraud.
Also, make sure to tell a friend or an associate
you know who's a registered voter in Chicago about
this important new development.
posted by agent99 @ 8:34 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
The hacking of the 1.3 million voters' social security numbers in Chicago is another example of how we cannot protect our information from the carelessness or deviousness of others. That brings me to the point that it is not monitoring that protects us (monitoring lets us know the beginning of the nightmare), but restoration which restores us after the identity theft happens.
Restoration is important too and not diminishing it's value.
Just understand it's positioning from this perspective.
Look at the problem, meaning identity theft, as a large funnel. Many opportunities exist, at the large front end of the funnel, to prevent identity theft by simply utilizing effective deter or detect methods.
Just one of those methods, for detection, is credit monitoring. Often times, if caught early enough, you can not only eliminate the credit fraud from your permanent record, but also certainly mitigage the overall (and often times long term damage) resulting from unchecked identity theft credit fraud.
Plus, in the area of say your checking account, there's not an effective resolution remedy out there for when your deposits are stolen - especially after 72 hours.
The banks still see that area, in contrast to credit cards, as it's your primary responsibility to tell them some one has siphoned off your funds.
The only way we know of to counter that threat is to enroll in account monitoring - especially for exception based wireless alerts.
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