Nearly 8,000 people were recently alerted to a
data breach at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency more than four months ago.
The breach affected 5,100 current EPA employees and 2,700 others whose personal information was left exposed on an agency database in March, according to a report from the
Washington Business Journal. The victimized consumers only learned that the incident occurred last week.
"EPA conducted a risk analysis, [which] indicates it is unlikely the personal financial information has been used," the agency told the news source. "Vigilantly keeping data secure from increasingly sophisticated cyber threats is a top priority at EPA. The agency has already added new safeguards in response to the incident."
The exposed information included the victims' names, bank routing numbers and home addresses, the report said.
Ondrej Krehel, the chief information security officer for
Identity Theft 911, writes regularly about the ways
data breaches can effect both organizations and consumers, and what these parties can do to reduce their exposure in the wake of these incidents and in the future as well.
© 2003-2012 IDentity Theft 911, LLC. All Rights Reserved