Countrywide Data Breach of Two Million Victims

September 5, 2008 – 2:27 pm

The Countrywide Home Loan Company has become the spotlight for one of the biggest data breaches in history. Over 2 million identities were stolen by two men over the course of two years. An insider in the company was selling the customer profiles, which contained enough information to easily commit identity theft, for about 2.5 cents each.

Rene L. Rebollo Jr. was a senior financial analyst at Countrywide Home Loan. He had access to databases containing the personal information of the company’s nationwide customers. He downloaded them in sets of 20,000 at a time and sold them to Wahid Siddiqi for 2.5 cents per entry. Even at these prices he claims to have made $50,000-$70,000 off the whole endeavor. His contact then re-sold the information to identity thieves for around 100 times the price. The FBI is investigating the incident and both perpetrators are currently in custody. Rebello faces up to five years in prison, and Siddiqi may get up to 15 years behind bars.

There are now over 2 million Americans whose identities are in the hands of criminals who have the intention of stealing their hard earned money. What is more disturbing is that just about any corporation is equally vulnerable. No matter how good the security measures are, there is always at least someone in a company who has access to your identity. Do you fully trust these strangers who could make massive profits by selling you out to identity thieves? Unfortunately the evidence is all over the press. We are not safe.

This is why so many Americans are turning to LifeLock for identity theft protection. Life Lock covers you when other companies expose you. It protects your identity even after your information falls into the hands of identity thieves. LifeLock is so confident in its protection program that it backs your assets with a $1,000,000 guarantee*. If you are interested in subscribing to LifeLock, you can use the LifeLock promo code Defense to get a discount on their services.

*Guarantee applies only if you become an id theft victim because of a failure in our service. Other restrictions apply. See LifeLock.com for details.

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