Data Loss Source: Paper jams in a Pennsylvania Department of General Services mail inserter caused benefit renewal packets to go to the wrong Pennsylvania welfare client’s home.
Date of Breach: August 26, 2008
Size of Loss : 2,845
Affected Individuals: Welfare clients
Geographic Focus: Harrisburg, PA
Data contained: Nearly half of the packets included the intended recipients’ Social Security numbers.
Additional Notes: The department placed a 90-day fraud alert on the credit reports of people whose Social Security numbers were shared through the mistake.
Additional Information: The Patriot News

Data Loss Source: About 1,500 customers of Horizon Air and Alaska Airlines were victimized by a former call center employee who stole their credit card information, according to Alaska Air Group, the airlines’ parent company.
Size of Loss : 1,500
Affected Individuals: Horizon Air and Alaska Airlines customers
Geographic Focus: U.S.
Data contained: Credit card details
Additional Notes: The former call center worker diverted payments meant for Horizon and Alaska to a personal account between August 2006 and June 2008, according to Alaska Air Group.
Additional Information: Press Democrat

Data Loss Source: Details of how to access Best Western hotel guest information were sold through an underground network operated by the Russian mafia. Date of Loss: August 25, 2008
Size of Loss : 8,000,000
Affected Individuals: Best Western guests
Geographic Focus: Europe
Data contained: Home addresses, place of employment and credit card details
Additional Notes: Tim Wade, head of marketing for Best Western GB, said it was “unlikely” that whoever was responsible got hold of the details of “every booking at every hotel” in Europe because of the way their system worked.
Additional Information: Telegraph.co.uk

Data Loss Source: The Princeton Review, a test-preparation company, accidentally published students’ personal information online this summer for about six weeks.
Date of Loss: August 21, 2008
Size of Loss : 300
Affected Individuals: Students
Geographic Focus: Fairfax County, Virginia
Data contained: Student names, identification numbers assigned by the school system and dates of birth. The information, dating from 2006, also included the students’ sexes and schools.
Additional Notes: In a statement, the company said the security breakdown probably occurred when the files were transferred to a new Web hosting provider.
Additional Information: Washington Post

Data Loss Source: The Ministry of Justice has reported that around 45,000 people were affected in nine separate data loss incidents. The worst single incident was in June 2007 when 27,000 people working for department suppliers were affected after information from badly protected electronic storage devices was disclosed without authorization. The second most serious incident occurred in January 2008 when 14,000 people were affected due to a badly-protected laptop being stolen from secured government premises.
Date of Loss: August 18, 2008
Size of Loss : 45,000
Affected Individuals: Citizens
Geographic Focus: Britain
Data contained: Names, dates of birth, bank details and some national insurance numbers was among the information stolen.
Additional Notes: The government did not send letters of notification to affected citizens.
Additional Information: ITPro.com