TransUnion notifies consumers of data loss

09.11.2005
TransUnion LLC, one of the three major credit reporting companies in the U.S., Wednesday confirmed that a desktop computer containing the Social Security numbers and other sensitive information belonging to more than 3,600 consumers was stolen from one of its facilities in October.

The theft prompted the company to notify them of the breach on Oct. 21 and offer free credit monitoring services for a year.

In a statement, TransUnion said that a "small" TransUnion sales office in California was burglarized in early October. "One of the items stolen during the incident was a password-protected desktop computer, which may have contained some personal [credit] information on approximately 3,600 consumers," the company said.

TransUnion notified local law enforcement authorities of the break-in and has assembled its own team to investigate the incident.

Since then, the credit reporting agency has been monitoring the credit reports of the affected consumers. "At this point, we do not believe there is any indication of any fraudulent activity," it said.

However, the implications of the reported breach could go beyond the customers whose data was stolen if information stored on the missing desktop enables access to databases holding information on other consumers, said Prat Moghe, CEO of Tizor Systems Inc., a Maynard, Mass.-based vendor of activity auditing tools.