Bank of America: 1.2 million federal employee credit cards exposed

[R.A. Hettinga]

<http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,1032140,00.html>

Time Magazine

 Friday, Feb. 25, 2005
A New Cyber-Security Breach
Bank of America says at least 1.2 million federal employee credit card
accounts may be exposed to theft or hacking
By  TIMOTHY J. BURGER
 Try 4 Issues of TIME magazine FREE!
 In the financial world's latest cyber-identity crisis, Bank of America
today is warning the holders of at least 1.2 million of its federal
employee credit card accounts that a major security breach may have left
their account information exposed to theft or hacking, according to a
senior U.S. official and Bank spokeswoman.

 The U.S. official said that federal law enforcement is investigating the
loss of several Bank of America data backup tapes that were being
transferred across country by air when they disappeared in December. "We
are proactively sending letters to impacted cardholders," said Alexandra
Trower, spokesperson for Charlotte-based Bank of America. She said that
after intensive account-monitoring, the tapes are at this point believed to
be lost, not stolen. "We, with federal law authorities, have done a very
robust, thorough investigation on this and neither we nor they would make
the statement lightly that we believe those tapes to be lost," she said.
"We have no evidence that the tapes have been accessed in any way. We have
witnessed no unusual activity. And we've been monitoring the situation very
closely."

 The U.S. official said a large percentage of the accounts are for the
Pentagon but that some 40 federal agencies and other entities are affected.
Some of the tapes related to non-federal card-holders, the official added.
Trower would not comment on which agencies are affected, referring
questions to the General Services Administration. A GSA spokesperson had no
immediate response to an inquiry about the matter, including whether any of
the Pentagon's billions of dollars in secret "black" programs could be
affected. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the data loss includes
files on 900,000 of the Pentagon's three million or so military and
civilian workers. "It is a significant number of the Department's
employees," he said, declining to say whether it affected any who are
working undercover.


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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
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