Sailors’ PII breached
Fox News reports that the Navy says that they lost the personally identifiable information (PII) of 134,386 current and former Sailors that was accessed by unknown individuals;
The Navy was notified in October by Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services that one of the company’s laptops operated by their employee supporting a Navy contract was “compromised,” the service said in a news release.
[…]
The Navy said it will notify those affected Sailors in the coming weeks by multiple means including phone, letter and email.
For those affected by the breach, the Navy said it is working to provide further details on what happened, and is reviewing credit monitoring service options for affected sailors.
Like I’ve said before, if the government has any of your PII, you need to have a permanent way to monitor the use of your information. They never tell you in a timely manner when your information was lost and they just don’t care.
Thanks to AW1Ed for the link.
Category: Navy
Jeezuz… not again! I think that I’ve been notified just about every freaking year since I’ve been retired that my PII has been “compromised” by some carelessness on the government’s part.
Why in hell would Hewlett Packard have the personal info on 130,000 sailors??
Well, if they ‘lose’ my PII, it won’t do a thief any good. I froze everything some time back. Only I have the key to unlock those secrets.
Notification to the Navy of the security breach, according to the Navy, was received on 27 October. The day before Thanksgiving, at 5:01 p.m., when most people have just began their four-day weekend, the Navy announced the breach. Games. Games. More games. What immediate steps did the Navy take? Whistling. Why is a month-old issue only in the “early stages of investigation?” Whistling. How can the Navy’s personnel poo-bah say that the Navy takes this very seriously when all indications are that the Navy hid the matter and then released notice of it clearly and obviously to minimize the adverse PR? Whistling. Whistling. Whistling.
Insert ex-OS2’s famous one-word comment here.
Cocksuckers.
Thank you.
Here is what you can do for almost free.
Put a credit freeze on the big three of the credit reporting agencies. You get a pin and it costs $10 to unfreeze them if you need to.
Get your free yearly credit report and review it in detail.
Get a pin from the IRS that is needed to file your taxes.
Do not ignore strange bills or letters that come in the mail.
Google your name and SSN every once in awhile.
USAA also provides a credit monitoring service. If you have an account with them, inquire.
Not a plug for USAA- I’m sure other financial institutions will do the same. I’d trust them FAR before anything Big Navy could provide.
Yep they do. Pretty good, actually, and it’s free. They notify you in real time when things change for good or bad. Maybe the GOV could take a couple of hints.
Really? I’ll have to check that out.
Trusting the Government is like having Casey Anthony babysit your kids. Some of the things I trust more than I do the Government are Used Car Salesmen, Mexican Tap Water, stray dogs, rattlesnakes, …
Hey now, at least rattlesnakes WARN you before they strike.
gas station sushi
I’ve had almost continuous ‘free’ credit monitoring for most of the previous 12 +/- years, compliments of the government. I’m on my second year of the most recent cycle, which is three years of free credit monitoring, ARO my PII being ripped from my employment with the DVA. Prior to that it was another government SNAFU, the same prior to that, etc. A few years back, prior to the most recent notification (which took months for notification), someone took a nice vacation on my dime by using stolen PII to create bogus accounts. I have always monitored my financials on a daily basis. It’s not that difficult. I have accounts with brokerage firms that allow me to register my CC/other accounts, and the balance/charges/etc. are updated continuously throughout the day on the brokerage websites. It’s free and the updates are at 15 minute intervals, I believe. I also am a big believer in annualcreditreport.com, which is a free report from each of the ‘big three’ credit reporting bureaus. (Equifax, TransUnion, Experian) I rotate them, using one each four months, so I can use them all one time each twelve months. By doing it this way the cost is zero. The benefit over the free brokerage reporting is that it reports any NEW credit opened using my PII, while the brokerage company simply reports all changes for existing accounts. BTW, there is no reason to have a brokerage account(s) for the free service. There are several sites that offer the same services for absolutely no cost. No, there is no ‘catch’ to the deal. The only downside, and it really isn’t (to me) is that they will occasionally offer a credit card/mortgage/whatever. (Somebody has to pay for the service.) There is zero obligation. It’s not even necessary to sit through a video sales pitch prior to declining. The names of these don’t come to mind, but a little research should do the trick. Oh, Discover Card will give a free FICO score simply for the asking. You need not have a Discover account. The service doesn’t report on any existing accounts/missed… Read more »
This is the only time in life when having bad credit is helpful. Somebody tries to open an acct in your name, using your SSN and DOB and–DENIED!