On Sunday June 10, 2007 someone broke into a car in Ohio and stole several items. “So what?” you ask…
One of the items stolen was data containing personal information on thousands of employees and citizens from the state of Ohio. It was originally reported that the data covered about 64,000 state employees, but information has continued to roll in on additional exposures. These now include a data set containing the names and social security numbers of people with outstanding uncashed state checks dated back to 2005, a data set listing names and SSNs of state lottery winners, and a data set with names and social security numbers of Ohioans who had rejected electronic fund transfers when attempting to pay state fees.
There has been a lot of discussion as to why this sensitive data was in an intern’s car in the first place. However, the key thing that we noticed was that the State of Ohio very quickly came forward and offered an identity theft protection plan to all those who may be affected. And guess who they selected? Debix!
Why Debix and not the better known, near household name LifeLock? Probably two reasons:
First, Debix probably gave them a great discount. Why not, it’s fantastic advertising, and 64,000+ new subscribers is huge for the Austin, Texas based startup.
Second, as you can see from the information collected on this site, Debix has a technically better product. (Wonder if the Ohio Brass found their info here? We’ll check our logs…)
So there are a couple of points we can all learn from the “Case of the Ohio Breach”. We are once again reminded that critical data does get into the hands of thieves; it is our responsibility to protect our identities; and finally, given the choice, Ohio picked Debix.