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Security Breach Hits Credit Cards*tRX
By  Robin Sidel and Christopher Conkey|
Wall Street Journal , April 14, 2005  i7{<=A
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HSBC Notifies 180,000 People Who Shopped At Ralph Lauren; Other Banks May Be Affected 

British financial giant HSBC PLC is notifying at least 180,000 people who used MasterCard credit cards to make purchases at Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. that criminals may have obtained access to their credit-card information, and that they should replace their cards. 

The situation -- which involves a General Motors-branded MasterCard that is one of the most widely held credit cards in the U.S. -- is the latest in a string of high-profile incidents in which personal data were stolen from retailers or financial institutions. Although HSBC and MasterCard declined to discuss when or how the apparent theft occurred, people with knowledge of the matter identified the retailer as Polo Ralph Lauren. A Polo spokeswoman declined to comment. 

The incident, which is thought to have taken place more than a month ago, is likely to further highlight the issue among regulators and politicians who are considering new rules to deal with identity theft. 

Although HSBC so far appears to be the only financial institution to disclose that it is alerting cardholders of the incident, credit cards issued by other banks also could be vulnerable. Under current rules, however, banks aren't necessarily required to alert their cardholders to the potential fraud. 

In a statement, Visa USA Inc. said it was aware of a "data security breach" and is "working with the merchant, law enforcement and the affected member financial institutions to monitor and prevent card-related fraud." 

HSBC said it was sending letters to 180,000 holders of cards branded by MasterCard and GM. The British bank manages six million GM-MasterCard branded cards in circulation. GM referred calls to HSBC. 

Stephen Cohen, an HSBC spokesman in New York, said the bank is "alerting cardholders as quickly as possible because we take the security of their accounts very seriously." He also said the bank is continuing to evaluate its other cards to determine if they may have been affected. 

The HSBC letter, which was sent to cardholders last week, reads in part: "A national retailer's computer system has had a security breach and your credit card account number may be among those that were compromised." It was signed by "GM Cardmember Services" and noted that HSBC issues the card and provides administrative and processing services for it. The letter went on to say that "we are unaware of any fraudulent activity on your account." 

A spokeswoman for MasterCard, an association that has thousands of banks as members, said it has "taken the necessary steps to inform all the [credt-card] issuers that could possibly be impacted by the potential database compromise." MasterCard and Visa both said U.S. cardholders are protected from liability for unauthorized transactions. 

Identity theft is a growing problem. Typically, criminals use stolen information to then fraudulently obtain credit cards, mortgage loans and auto loans, or simply to charge purchases to existing accounts. The Federal Trade Commission says 10 million people -- nearly 5% of the adult population -- discovered they were victims of identity theft in 2003. Other studies put the cost to consumers, banks and credit-card companies at more than $11 billion a year. 

Currently, only two laws mandate consumer notification when a breach occurs. The first is a two-year-old California statute requiring notification whenever electronic personal data are stolen. The second, a federal regulation requiring banks to inform consumers of breaches if it is "reasonably possible" that identity theft will result, took effect last month. 

While banks also are required to report breaches that occur in-house or at financial-service providers with whom they do business, HSBC technically wasn't required to notify GM MasterCard holders because the breach in question occurred at a separate retailer, not within the bank or the credit-card company. 

More than 20 states are considering legislation similar to the California law, which this year exposed a scandal involving ChoicePoint Inc., an Alpharetta, Ga., company that collects consumer data, and which said thieves had obtained information on about 145,000 people by posing as legitimate customers. This week, LexisNexis said 310,000 Americans, nearly 10 times its original estimate, had their personal and financial data accessed by unauthorized individuals via its computer systems. 

Sensitive data also have been compromised at some banks, mutual funds and universities. Last month, DSW Shoe Warehouse reported the theft of credit-card information from a database for 103 of the chain's 175 stores. 

Congress seems likely to put data brokers like LexisNexis and ChoicePoint under greater scrutiny this year, but debate is heating up over whether to impose a broader notification requirement on any business or government agency that handles personal information. 

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, one frequent topic of discussion was a bill put forward by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California that goes even further than the California law by expanding the definition of a breach to include encrypted data and paper records. Business groups are resigned to some kind of notification standard, but they are pushing hard for something along the lines of the banking regulations, which preserve some latitude for a bank to decide when a breach poses a threat to consumers. 

--- 

--Robin Sidel and Christopher Conkey 

Ellen Byron and Teri Agins contributed to this report. 

--- 

Foiling the Thieves 

Here are some steps to take if you learn that someone may have gotten access to your personal data: 

-- Contact the three major credit bureaus to place a fraud alert on your file. 

-- Check the compromised account to look for signs of fraudulent activity (and if you see any, call the company involved for help). 

-- Check your credit report frequently after the breach occurs in case thieves manage to open new accounts in your name. 
 
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LexisNexis Reveals Further Breaches of Database\N
By  David Pringle and Rachel Zimmerman\p!JR
Wall Street Journal , April 13, 2005 

LexisNexis said 310,000 Americans, nearly 10 times itsn)0o/
original estimate, have had their personal datac,rr
accessed by unauthorized individuals via its computerA/Sw
systems, raising fresh concerns about the0w|
data-collection industry's ability to guard againstK_
hackers amid a surge in identity-theft crimes. 
Separately, Tufts University sent a "precautionary"G<
letter to alumni last week warning them that personal*Th$
information may have been stolen from a computerxUBlG
database used for fund raising. The letter, sent to5xi_
about 106,000 graduates and other donors, says Tufts7?uQL
"detected abnormal activity" on a computer thatv
included names, addresses, Social Security and$
credit-card numbers. 

The latest revelations are likely to give new urgencyvW#=
to the clamor for laws to prevent data brokers fromm~:L|W
amassing sensitive personal information withoutU
consent and for better safeguards of other databases.8(H
Recently, data broker ChoicePoint Inc. of Alpharetta,qR^z
Ga., said identity thieves had obtained information onu%+F
about 145,000 people by posing as legitimate&`*\1
customers. Sensitive data also have been compromised6/
at some banks, mutual funds and other universities. 

LexisNexis, a legal- and business-information providerHlg
owned by Reed Elsevier PLC of the United Kingdom, saidSBM
it has identified 59 security breaches over two years"
-- a rate of about one every two weeks -- making ther?WaB
problem far more pervasive than it had previouslyE
realized. The accessed information included SocialqA,z[
Security, driver's license numbers and other personalU=I%D)
information. 

U.S. law-enforcement agencies are investigating thex]
breach, and Reed said it is offering fraud insurance1{}I0
and other services such as credit checks, free of0*
charge, to individuals whose data were accessed by/
unauthorized people. Reed's latest announcement comesjyp
five weeks after its initial disclosure that breaches_/_
had affected about 30,000 people. 

Once individual information has been purloined, it canIbA}
be used by identity thieves to fraudulently obtain)
credit cards, mortgage loans and car loans, amongm5hD:
other things. The Federal Trade Commission estimatesIv
27.3 million Americans were affected by identity theftc
in the five years through 2003, with the pace of theftX
quickening toward the end of that period. 

Data brokers, which collect and sell personalw-B{
information, represent a new and still largely]gn}B
unregulated industry -- but virtually every state isBW3&9
considering some kind of privacy legislation. In at&TX
least 20 states, the law would require companies tor4}sw
notify individuals when their personal information isAq
compromised, according to the Electronic Privacy{a$V-#
Information Center, a public-interest research group?r|[$^
in Washington, D.C. Congress is also considering a?VSbT+
federal notification standard, based on a CaliforniaN,Hi++
law that exposed the ChoicePoint breach. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to hold a hearingfH/-
today on the recent wave of data breaches and on the4Io-](
proposed legislation. 

Laws governing the collection and movement of personal[J6a
data are much stricter in Europe and the region hasn'tTRS*Aj
had the spate of security breaches experienced in theVAQ*D
U.S. 

Data brokers such as LexisNexis promote theirC%wu^
"risk-management" services to banks, insurance8
companies, law-enforcement agencies and otherUC-
legitimate organizations that need to guard againstjD[~
financial fraud. Banks, for instance, buy the data soG-
they can run checks when deciding whether to approve ayN%;)^
mortgage application. Reed executives say the4c5
data-brokering business is an important tool inYrst
preventing fraud. 

LexisNexis said it began investigating thousands ofh8>
customers' accounts last month, after announcing thatxc0
information on 30,000 people held by its Seisint\@cku=
data-brokering division may have been accessed byg8%
criminals. Yesterday Reed said that it had uncoveredf:k0
dozens of Seisint security breaches that predated itse
acquisition of the company late last year, as well asJ>yo77
a handful of incidents in other parts of LexisNexis.R
Kurt Sanford, head of U.S. corporate and federalcuT
markets for LexisNexis, said the company didn't haveC54m,
any idea of the extent of the problem before thePnT
investigation. 

The security breaches typically took one of three|H\
forms, Mr. Sanford said, all related toO
misappropriation of passwords. In some cases, an;z
unauthorized individual was able to access LexisNexiswcLMS{
databases after figuring out a legitimate customer'so{
too-obvious password. In others, a former employee ofU+4A
a legitimate customer was able to continue accessing"4
the LexisNexis databases because the customer didn'tdvw5r
change the account details after the employee left. In&&
still others, criminals obtained an account2
administrator's identification details, allowing them'q.
to create unauthorized accounts. 

LexisNexis executives say they are now monitoring%4b5
customers' usage patterns closely to spot anyqcv8"
irregular activity. They say they are also trying to~q
force customers to beef up their security by reviewingPKs;^
passwords monthly and requiring authorizations fromO5M
two managers for each new account. 

LexisNexis said that so far none of the 30,000 people2X''7
notified of a breach in December and January have come6}`MN
back to report instances of identity theft. Privacy%G[
advocates, however, say criminals don't alwaysH^u"
immediately use data they obtain, preferring sometimesK)
to sell them on the Internet. Or, they say, a criminal2P2^3
may open a credit card in an individual's name, butO,|[P
use a different address, so the individual doesn't seex/<|PX
the credit-card statements and isn't aware of thee(
fraud. 

Reed's LexisNexis unit pushed deeply into data2r#
brokering when it purchased Seisint Inc. of BocaM9Kwi
Raton, Fla., for $775 million late last year. Seisint-32-6
was known for having some of the top software for6LE
searching databases. It also sold data searches for asBz%y
little as 25 cents apiece. 

Reed said the financial cost of the breaches will be*0g^uD
manageable and didn't change its earnings forecasts. 

At Tufts, Betsey Jay, director of advancement[#~I
communications and donor relations, said there is "no-/v
evidence that any data is being misused." Still, theP9
letter urged alumni to contact their banks and check{
credit reports for any signs of unauthorized activity.q_wg
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Ms. Jay said analysts detected "unusual activity,"TK
during routine checks on a server used for telephoneZO
fund raising that is owned by Tufts but managed by an=$w
outside vendor. The suspicious activity --q@E.h
specifically, large amounts of data moving through thev+(?d
machine -- occurred Oct. 31 and Dec. 19, she said. One{F?742
theory was that someone was using the computer as aQ
distribution point for movies and other entertainment;V{
media, Ms. Jay said. At the time, Tufts decided thereA\Dr
wasn't enough evidence to notify alumni about the;e:+V}
unusual activity. But, she said, after recentRb
revelations about security breaches at financial andmTI
educational institutions, Tufts decided to alert itsRQ[v
donors. She said there is no evidence that the*
break-in was carried out by students, faculty members["g<[
or employees. 

--- 

--David Pringle and Rachel Zimmerman 

Christopher Conkey contributed to this article.