What is the street value of your personal information, enough data to steal your identity? For 28 year old Binyamin Schwartz of Oak Park, Michigan, about 70 cents ought to do it.
Schwartz, a software developer, told authorities that he was working as a contractor for Sentry Insurance in Wisconsin when he stole data for more than 100,000 individuals containing names, dates of birth, social security numbers and other information. Schwartz offered to sell 36,000 of the records to an undercover federal agent for $25,000. After traveling from Michigan to Tennessee, where the agent was located, Schwartz was taken into custody.
Yesterday Schwartz was sentenced to 5 years in prison and ordered to make more than half a million dollars in restitution to the insurance company. Information about 70 people had been released when Schwartz was taken into custody.
His story poses an ominous backdrop for another contract employee at another organization. On July 3, a database programmer working as a contractor for Fidelity National Information Services accessed and sold data about more than 2 million individuals. Company representatives claim that the data so far has been used for marketing purposes rather than theft, but has notified the individuals whose data was breached.
Labels: identity theft
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