Worst Breach Ever?
There’s a lot of headlines about how the TJX “Data Theft Grows To Biggest Ever” (Washington Post). The trouble is, that claim is wrong, and it’s wrong even amended to “Biggest reported ever.” The biggest reported theft of person data is Scott Levine’s theft of over a billion records from Axciom. As the Department of Justice says in “Justice Department Announces Conviction of Florida Man Accused of Massive Data Theft from Acxiom, Inc.:”
The evidence at trial showed that Levine, working with others at Snipermail, Inc., was responsible for stealing over a billion records containing personal information, physical addresses, and e-mail addresses, among other items, through approximately August 2003.
The Washington Post doubtless regrets the error, and will be running a correction shortly.
Image via Shipbrook [link to http://www.shipbrook.com/jeff/blog/?date=20021201no longer works].