Everyone is concerned with their personal health information. News segments cover issue on the field on a nightly basis. There is a reason so many people are concerned. Not only are they worried about insurance companies denying them health coverage because of some piece of medical information, but also because of the damage done to individuals who have their personal histories stolen. That is the exact concern for 128,000 people who were insured by WellPoint, Inc. The Tampa based insurance provider reported a data breach earlier in this week.

The data breach was easily preventable, according to reports. Rather than an outside hacker illegally entering the system, an employee accidentally posted the material on the company’s website. The personal information that appeared on the website included social security numbers, prescription numbers, and pharmacy medical records. No information has surfaced about security measures undertaken by the company to prevent similar problems from taking place in the future. There is also no word about when the breach occurred, although it was reported in the middle of April.

Within the 128,000 affected people, at least 71,000 live in the state of Georgia. This group of 71,000 mostly includes low income individuals who were receiving insurance as part of a plan to supplement the health coverage of poor and under privileged people. No details are yet available about any individual complaints or legal actions under way by the affected individuals.

WellPoint, Inc. officials say that there have been no reported incidences of identity theft. In an effort to help those negatively affected by the data breach, the company is providing free credit report checking for all 128,000 victims. Experts in the field of network security view this as being an important step toward the company reclaiming its credibility.

Unfortunately, with the many data breaches happening on a daily basis, few companies are taking the same type of stand as WellPoint. In instances where the affected business does not step forward and approach the situation in a proactive sense, consumers are advised to take matters in to their own hands. Such steps involve monitoring credit cards, loan applications, and all information reported to credit bureaus. One method to streamline this process is to invest in a subscription to an ID theft service. Companies, like Lifelock, monitor all three credit bureaus and alert subscribers to any attempt to take out loans, open new credit cards, or proceed with any other fraudulent activities.

For the time being, officials continue to monitor the situation. Individuals who have their insurance through WellPoint and have not yet been contacted, should check for updates on the company’s website. Anyone who notices fraudulent activity on their accounts, whether through personal screenings or alerts from Lifelock, should contact WellPoint immediately to discuss the next step. Customer service representatives are available to answer all the questions of people insured by WellPoint.

It appears that no one is safe from ID theft anymore. A group of 150 individuals in Boston have had this fact recently confirmed for them. According to published reports, the 150 individuals had attended classes at the Boston Museum of Science. Although the investigation continues, the affected individuals have already been contacted by mail and phone. It appears that their personal information was posted on the museum’s webpage by a contract employee. Since the webpage was public, the data was available to anyone with access to the Internet.

Although the 150 individuals had taken classes at the museum, there were additional people affected. Another 180 consumers who had purchased gifts at the museum shop also had their personal information shared on the website. Unlike the 150 students from the museum, who had their home addresses and credit card information posted, the regular gift shop consumers just had their credit card numbers placed on the webpage.

A spokesman for the museum was not able to confirm how long the material remained on the website. The breach was only brought to the attention of the media at the end of last month, although it had taken place earlier. The delay was due to the fact that the museum was trying to alert all the affected parties in a timely fashion. Additionally, there was no information available about how the breach was noticed or who might have obtained the sensitive data.

Although a copy of the letters sent to the affected individuals has not surfaced for the media, in undoubtedly contained information about steps the people should take. Whether or not in included any information about purchasing a subscription from an ID theft service, such as Lifelock, hopefully the affected people look in to this option. More and more consumers are realizing how simple interactions, such as taking a course at the local museum, can be the source for potential identity theft. With more transactions taking place online, these types of breaches are, unfortunately, becoming more common.

As the story continues to develop, investigators are seeing whether or not any fraudulent activity has taken place on affected accounts. The fate of the contract employee who accidentally posted the information has not been released. Currently, no investigations are being done on the employee, which implies that police and the museum do not believe that this was an intention act. As more information becomes available about the breach, authorities will be in contact with the students and shoppers at the museum store.

While this breach has brought negative attention to the Boston Museum of Science, it does not seem to have affected its visitor numbers. The museum has assured its patrons that it has stepped up security and put measures in place to prevent any further misplacement of private information. Time will tell how effective these measures prove to be.

With the presidential primaries finally settled, many American are turning their attention toward November for the show-down between John McCain and Barack Obama. Unfortunately, not all Americans can let this be the sole point of their attention. This is especially true for the citizens of Pennsylvania. In the crucial swing state, many voters understand that the primaries can be very important and many took steps to make sure that their voice was heard and vote counted.

In an effort to streamline the voter registration process, the state government set up a website that allowed users to enter their personal information and register without the hassle of having to send any forms in through the mail. This system was working quite well, with over 30, 000 individuals participating in the early days of its operation. Sadly to report, those 30,000 people are now at risk for identity theft. A severe data breach of the system took place that exposed a variety of personal information, including birth dates and social security numbers, to the public. The state has not yet said how the breach happened or what security measures were in place to prevent such an issue. Outside reports state that the breach occurred because of a simple programming error, although these are unconfirmed reports.

While the presidential election is far from being a conclusion, this is now a period of considerable unrest for the 30,000 voters in the state of Pennsylvania who registered online through the state’s website. There have been no reports of identity theft at this moment, but it is still early in the process and authorities are not optimistic. One was reported as saying, “When the breach is this large, you just have to hope we caught it soon enough and that people are protected.” Within a day of being alerted that the website was functioning incorrectly, it was shut down by the state. Despite the programming glitch, many are praising the state’s network administrators for acting so promptly to limit the extent of the damage.

There has been no indication about how the state plans to contact the affected individuals. People who know they registered within the state through the website are advised to be vigilant in situations regarding their identities. A few individuals who were available to talk on the issue said that they were investing in subscriptions to ID theft services. While a variety of companies and options are available, the majority of people we talked to have decided on Lifelock. Regardless of the company that one chooses, personal identity experts are advising people to take precautions. As one investigator, who wished to remain anonymous, stated, “Too many people wait until something bad has happened to them before they protect themselves. Lots of people have car insurance, but all too few take the threat to their identities seriously enough until it is too late.”

And you thought it was bad in the United States. In Chile hackers accessed and then posted the personal information of over six million people in the largest data breach in South American history.

The hacker, posting as Anonymous Coward, unleashed three compressed files that offered the taxpayer id (like our Social Security Numbers), addresses, phone numbers, and a host of other private information on the popular Chilean techblog Fayerwayer in the form of a comment on an article. Although the information was only available for two hours there’s really no way of knowing how many people saw/downloaded/accessed that data. Allegedly, the hacker posted the information to bring light to the poor security measures imposed by the government by releasing data on over 1/3 of the country’s population (of 16 million).

According to the Chilean newspaper that broke the story, El Mercurio, “The publicity has focused the country’s attention on both government IT security and also the country’s lax privacy laws. For example, Chile’s department of elections sells voter data including gender, name, address, nationality, date of birth, and information on disabilities.” That’s pretty frightening in and of itself–if the government is already going to make that data readily available for commercial purposes it stands to reason that a data breach like that would be happen.

Additionally noteworthy is that, in addition to posting the actual data, the hacker also posted tips on how to best use the data AND how he did it: apparently through the use of several proxies that allowed for near-anonymous access. Proxies are nothing new but they’re more frequently used for things like school-age children accessing sites like MySpace and Facebook after the sites have been banned from access at their schools. Further, these sites can be used to access just about anything–kind of like a baby VPN. It should come as no surprise then that given the ubiquity of these proxy sites that someone was going to take advantage of them in a place where the internet security is so lax.

Unfortunately for the affected Chileans there is no Lifelock or Debix to help bail them out of their situation so they’re going to have to take up their issues directly with the government; a government that has already made it known to them (the people) that they don’t take a particular interest in protecting their personal information.