What does Louisiana need right now?  Well, it could use an end to hurricanes.  It could also use some more financial and physical help with the reconstruction of houses in the New Orleans area.  But what has become increasingly important this week is protection for those realtors who would be trying to sell those houses.  It appears that a glitch took place sometime during last week that caused personal data to spill out of a server at the Louisiana Real Estate Commission.  This organizational body is responsible for licensing all realtors and brokers in the state, which is a total of around 13,000 people.

The information was first made available on a Friday and was accessible for two days before it was taken down by a concerned employee.  Thankfully the short nature of the exposure is potentially limiting to the threat of any identity theft, but this is not to say that the regulating agency is completely clear.  In the current world, there are bots that troll the internet looking for sensitive information that might be used for sale on illegal black market chat rooms in dark corners of the internet.  The information from the Commission’s site was just that type of material: names, social security numbers, birth dates, and addresses.  All of this is prime fodder for identity thieves.

A full scale investigation has been launched, but the state government has advised people to be patient.  In light of the recent damage caused by Hurricane Gustav, many government agencies are diverting all of their energies to making sure that the problems from the storm remain minor.  All the same, at least two different law enforcement agencies have been contacted to investigate the breach.  At this point, no one is thinking that there was any malice on the part of the person who uploaded the information.  This person has yet to be determined, but that is part of the investigation process.  An outside consulting firm has been called in to review all the electronic security measures of the company and to see what recommendations they can make to prevent future occurrences of this nature.  One possible consideration is to install a filter on the server that strains out personal information before it is sent out to the internet.

At this point, many realtors are scared, but know that there is little they can do to change the past.  One option that they have to help them continue well into the future is to enroll into an ID theft subscription service, such as Lifelock.  For a minimal monthly fee, customers are protected from major efforts of identity theft, such as fraudulent credit card and loan applications.  Lifelock provides this protection by maintaining contacts at all three major credit bureaus, Trans Union, Equifax, and Experian.  Whenever these applications are sent in for processing, they are temporarily held until a Lifelock representative can contact the person whose name appears on the documents.  If they verify that they are responsible for the submission, it continues through processing.  However, if they have no idea of what is going on, the documentation is discarded as fraudulent and this significantly limits the possibilities of identity theft.