Data Theft, Easier Than You Might Think
Details of a mysterious data theft have just been published by Dark Reading. Canada’s largest telecom provider, Bell Canada, has recovered personal data of about 3.4 million customers after a puzzling stealing incident.
Apparently, the person responsible for stealing the confidential information has never worked for Bell South. The company however chose not to disclose where the respective data was stored.
The data was found after a search of two locations in Montreal, and a suspect has been arrested. No credit card or account information was included, but about 5 percent of the phone numbers recovered were unlisted, Bell Canada said.
A spokesman for Bell Canada said that police were able to track down the data and the suspect because of a tip from a witness, who reported that the suspect was attempting to shop the data around to a number of people.
It looks like you don’t have to be very smart to steal all confidential details of over 3 million people. To my mind, the thief was not that bright if he tried to sell the info so openly, without thinking of possible witnesses.
As private data can be so easily stolen, endpoint security and data loss prevention solution should be on the list of any company being only remotely concerned about what such a theft might entail. There is no such thing as full proof security, but there are efficient security policies that can prevent such things from happening.
