Hartford Financial Data Breach

Who Breached: Hartford Financial Services Group
Number Affected: 237,000
Information breached: Social Security Numbers, Driver’s License Numbers
How: 3 lost data tapes

The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. has notified 237,000 policy holders of a breach of their confidential information.

Three backup data tapes were discovered missing on September 27th, 2007. The tapes contained the names, addresses, Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers for customers of the personal lines claims center. The company does not know if the tapes were misplaced or have gone missing.

Hartford spokeswoman Shannon Lapierre does not think the data was stolen and assures customers that the data can only be read with sophisticated equipment. The data was not, however, encrypted.

Hartford Financial is offering free credit protection for 1 year including credit monitoring, unlimited credit reports and $20,000 in identity theft protection.

Via PC World ; Tags: data breach, it security, business security, data loss, identity theft