2007 Roundup: Data loss hits the headlines

Nationwide, Halifax, TK Maxx, HMRC and many, many more to blame

Matt Chapman, vnunet.com 24 Dec 2007

Data loss stole all the headlines in 2007 following a number of high profile breaches.

Forget the impetuous thief who was brave enough to nick ex-SAS soldier Andy McNab's laptop from his car. Other companies were queuing up to give sensitive data away.

It was almost a competition to see who could lose the most customer details, despite the industry getting a huge wakeup call early in 2007.

That warning came courtesy of the Nationwide Building Society, which found itself slapped with £1m fine from the Financial Services Authority following the theft of a laptop containing details of nearly 11 million customers.

Halifax then apologised in March after 13,000 mortgage details went missing along with a stolen briefcase.

Retailer TK Maxx then decided to land the award for biggest data disaster of the year by announcing that 45 million customer credit card details had been nabbed.

The concerted attack took place over an 18-month period on an open wireless link that handled payments.

A group of banks and credit card companies later claimed that 94 million TK Maxx consumers were actually affected.

Next up, Fidelity National Information Services admitted in May that personal information on a mere 2.3 million people has been illegally removed from its database.

And while TK Maxx may have won hands down when it came to the most customer data ever lost, the UK's HM Revenue and Customs went for the UK record.

Parliament revealed that the personal details of 25 million Britons sent by standard delivery on un-encrypted discs had been "lost in the post".

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas then warned that several other public bodies had secretly admitted to losing data following the HMRC crisis.

The avalanche of cases would have been less worrying for consumers if an obvious online trade in people's personal information wasn't taking place.

An investigation by a UK newspaper found more than 100 websites selling account information for UK bank customers, including account details, Pins and security codes.

The amount of consumer crime was overshadowed only by the digital cold war being waged online.

Countries were queuing up in 2007 to accuse the Chinese government of using the internet to conduct a spying campaign.

US officials claimed that the Chinese military successfully hacked computers inside the Pentagon in June.

The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee then accused the UK government of covering up the scale of a breach to its systems.

France then spoke out following an attack on French government systems.

MI5 was so worried about the threat that it sent a letter to 300 UK chief executives and security experts warning of an increased risk from Chinese hackers.

At the end of 2007 web security firm Finjan claimed to have traced a wave of Trojans infecting PCs around the world to sources in China, including one site belonging to a Chinese government office.

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