Morgan Stanley data breach hits investors

"Personal information belonging to 34,000 investment clients of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney has been lost, and possibly stolen, in a data breach. According to two letters sent to clients, and obtained by Credit.com, the information includes clients' names, addresses, account and tax identification numbers, the income earned on the investments in 2010, and--for some clients--Social Security numbers."

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Skudworth

Can we just start calling this “Pulling a Playstation” ?
JayConverse

My momma told me I should’a studied IT law
- karl_jones
  
  Want some hackers in your data?
  Virus in your tea?
  What’s all these crazy passwords that you’re askin’ me?
  This is the craziest party, a Morgan Stanley breach
  Don’t turn on the lights ’cause I don’t wanna see
  
  Mama told me not to come
  Mama told me not to come
  That ain’t the way to have fun, no
  
  (Apologies to Three Dog Night.)
Anonymous

lost???? how do you lose the data? whatever happened to BCP?
- Anonymous
  
  Calling it lost helps reassure people that this was a mistake. A harmless oopsie that we all commit. I lost my car keys, everyone has done this at least once (insert snarky response about people who don’t own cars and a picture of me beating them with a nerf bat).
  
  You can loose the tv remote (holds nerf bat menacingly), and then you find it and it is all okay again.
  
  The problem is they failed to secure their systems, and while the information might just be “lost” it is not like car keys or a remote. Information can be quickly copied and used.
  
  I am sure they are “taking this seriously” and there will be a new round of “contributions” made to any congress critter who decides to have a dog and pony show hearing that will accomplish nothing.
  
  At some point they really do need to consider having actual laws that actually require secured systems, and real penalties for the companies er Corporate Persons. It is one thing when a 0-day vulnerability is used, it is wholly another when it is done with a well known exploit that was fixed 10 years ago.
  
  But then I am one of those crazy people who hear the Government screaming we need a safer internet to protect our power generation systems, and I wonder if they are that critical and special WTF are they connected to the internet? No system is or can be 100% safe, but connecting them to the internet because thats what all the cool kids are doing seems foolish.
yclept

What the wha…I was about to be like, tough luck on those Morgan Stanley Smith Barney customers. And then I realized…gulp. As my 7yo son says, Dang It!