Data Loss Source: Records of students and staff including Social Security numbers, names, and addresses exposed on the Web by the Louisiana Board of Regents. In all, more than 80,000 names and Social Security numbers were accessible for perhaps as long as two years on an internal Internet site.
Date of Loss: July 17, 2007
Size of Loss: 80,000
Affected Individuals: Students and staff of schools in Louisiana
Geographic Focus: Baton Rouge, LA
Data contained: Social Security numbers, names, and addresses
Additional Notes:: The breach was discovered in an unusual way. A law school student in Louisiana, wanted to prove a point about user privacy. He started Googling — and ended up with names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and other personal data on some 80,000 students and employees in the state’s university system.
Additional Information : Forbes

Data Loss Source: Kingston Technologies Inc., a maker of computer memory technologies, sent out letters this week to 27,000 customers in connection with a September 2005 data breach that the company did not discover until recently.
Date of Loss: 2005
Size of Loss: 27,000
Affected Individuals: Kingston customers
Geographic Focus: Fountain Valley, CA
Data contained: Customer data
Additional Notes:: According to a spokesman, Kingston’s IT team “detected irregularities” in the company computer systems at some unspecified point in time and — along with a team of forensic computer experts — began investigating the issues. It was not until after that probe was completed and a final report released on May 22 that Kingston could confirm the scope of the intrusion and its impact.
Additional Information: Computerworld
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=networking_and_internet&articleId=9027220

Data Loss Source: A subcontractor working for Alta Resources, a company that processes and fulfills orders for the Disney Movie Club sold credit card numbers and other account information belonging to an unknown number of customers to undercover law enforcement agents.
Date of Loss: July 19, 2007
Size of Loss: Unknown
Affected Individuals: Disney Movie Club customers
Geographic Focus: U.S.
Data contained: Credit card information including names, addresses, credit card numbers and expiration dates
Additional Notes:: Disney sent out a letter urging potential victims to contact the financial institutions that issued their credit cards if they had any questions regarding their accounts. But it did not mention any free credit monitoring services, an option many companies have offered in similar situations.
Additional Information: Computerworld

Data Loss Source: Western Union just announced that it was notifying about 20,000 customers of a potential compromise of their personal data following the discovery of a database intrusion. The U.S. wire-transfer company admitted that thousands of customers’ personal information was stolen this year by a group of hackers.
Date of Loss: May 2007
Size of Loss: 20,000
Affected Individuals: Western Union customers
Geographic Focus: New York, NY
Data contained: customers’ names, phone numbers, addresses and credit card information,
Additional Notes:: While the company the data, company spokeswoman Sherry Johnson said that information hasn’t been used for illegal purposes since then, the New York Post said Tuesday.
Additional Information: Earth Times

Data Loss Source: A The credit card and checking account information of 1,200 people who had enrolled in the youth recreation programs of Encinitas, Calif. was posted on the city’s website for about three months.
Date of Loss: July 13, 2007
Size of Loss: 1,200 records
Affected Individuals: Program enrollees
Geographic Focus: Encinitas, CA
Data contained: Credit card and checking account information
Additional Notes:: The data was in a public folder on the website for about three months and was removed immediately after they were reported on June 26.
Additional Information: North County Times