UK's families put on fraud alert

[draganess]

Two computer discs holding the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing.
The Child Benefit data on them includes name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25 million people.

Chancellor Alistair Darling said there was no evidence the data had gone to criminals - but urged people to monitor bank accounts "for unusual activity".

The Conservatives described the incident as a "catastrophic" failure.

taken from here

what a mess!!

[Harv]

what on earth were 2 disks doing with all that data in an unencrypted format ? Shows just how crap the "systems" our tax money pays for at extortionate prices are.

[Ixpah]

On Tuesday the chancellor told MPs how the entire child benefit database was sent by a junior official from HMRC in Washington, Tyne and Wear, to the audit office in London through courier TNT on 18 October.

Forget about the disks; as in a way these are just a "Red Herring". What is even more worrying is that a junior official has complete access to the whole database in the first place, and can just copy the data apparently "at will". Who's to say that someone hasn't already copied the data and pasted in on? Given the Home Office apparently employed illegal immigrants as security guards; it isn't much of a stretch to wonder whether some of these junior officials aren't properly security vetted.

[emma roids]

muppets

and whats this `unusual activity`?? all your money going missing??

can folks do much with your account details??

[Ixpah]

Originally Posted by emma roids

can folks do much with your account details??

Well with your name, address, and account# they can certainly set-up direct debits; as to what use this is I don't know. They're probably more likely to use the information to get credit, or buy goods, in your name rather than actually empty your bank account though.

[emma roids]

Originally Posted by Ixpah

Well with your name, address, and account# they can certainly set-up direct debits; as to what use this is I don't know. They're probably more likely to use the information to get credit, or buy goods, in your name rather than actually empty your bank account though.

yes i see that, but all those details are on every single cheque i send.

anything stopping for example a dodgy ebayer selling cheap stuff but only accepting cheques and then ripping all the details of the said cheque?

[Harv]

the names, the addresses and the dates of birth of every child in the country are sitting on two computer discs that are apparently lost in the post, and the bank account details and National Insurance numbers of 10 million parents, guardians and carers have gone missing. The only thing they don't have is your online banking password.

They have already paid out £2700 that went missing from someones account - apparently and they say its still safe data - bit strange that rumour.

With all that info they can pretty much wreck havoc amongst anyone's life they feel like if the data gets into the wrong hands.

The National Insurance numbers alone along with any bank details and address leave it all rife for fraud by someone with a bit of grey matter between their ears.

All they have to do is sit on he info for a year or so everyone will forget and then the fun can begin. By that time its just a matter of fraud like any other no one will have any idea where the data came from.

E.g. I go to my local Electrical shop and buy one of everything on credit - credit check - of course here is my name, address, bank details oh and i have my NI number if you want it. My credits fine, good, can you just help me load it onto my car - you have a trolley oh thank you.

walk off with several thousand pounds worth of kit charged by direct debit to Mr Smith....

Not as simple as that but you get the picture and yet everyone will have forgotten that all that info has been given to junior officers to dispose of and duplicate as they see fit.

I know I forget stuff I setup over a year ago without referring back to files so I bet plenty of people fall far it

[Radon]

Lol the news tonight: "all they really needed was the names and N.I numbers but it would have taken to long to untangle this data, so they sent it all"

SELECT niNumber, name
FROM table

Hmmm

[draganess]

Data bases arnt my thing but even I could figure that one out!! Now the story of yorkshire water been to blame for the floods, makes you think if that story broke now to take the heat off the government!

[Ixpah]

Originally Posted by Radon

Lol the news tonight: "all they really needed was the names and N.I numbers but it would have taken to long to untangle this data, so they sent it all"

SELECT niNumber, name
FROM table

Hmmm

One would hope so; but that assumes its a relational database. From what I've read "cost" was the reason, which is probably linked to some poorly negotiated service contract with EDS (or whoever it is) which means its costs them £10k+ per "job"; regardless of how simple it is.

Companies seem to fall for this all the time; they think they're getting a good deal because the up-front cost is low but they fail to account for all the extras which their internal staff just did when it was all internal or with a apparently more expensive company which included all these "extras".

[smudge]

Ah well, if they access my bank account they will have to put something in it.