Tape with information on 230 retailers’ customers gone missing
GE Money, the consumer financial services unit of General Electric Co., has reported that a backup tape that includes personal information of 650,000 customers of 230 retailers has been missing since October from a facility of Iron Mountain Inc., an information storage and protection company.
GE Money manages credit card operations for the retailers and says the missing information includes around 150,000 Social Security numbers, which, if stolen, could be used in credit card and identity fraud schemes.
Iron Mountain representatives say none of the personal information has been compromised to date and that the backup tape may just be misplaced.
“We believe this is an unfortunate case of misplaced tape; there has been no evidence to suggest that the media was obtained by unauthorized persons or has been misused in any way,” an Iron Mountain statement says. “We also understand the tape was created in such a manner to make unauthorized access extremely unlikely and difficult, even for experts with specialized knowledge and technology.”
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