Maryland state security sloppiness exposes personal data

[Gman]

http://www.zdnet.com/maryland-state-...ta-7000020752/

Securing data can be hard work. It can be complicated. It can be expensive. And then sometimes you see people putting so little effort into it that there's just no excuse.

An example of this was sent to me by a reader. In anticipation of new gun control laws scheduled to take effect October 1, tens of thousands of citizens of Maryland applied for gun permits, which requires a background check.

The Maryland State Police, charged with performing the background checks, don't have the resources to do it soon enough, and, according to the Baltimore Sun, "Gov. Martin O'Malley said ... that the state is mustering all necessary resources" to complete the task in time.

"Mustering all necessary resources" in this case means "cutting corners."

First the state scanned the forms. Then, in order to expand access to the data necessary to perform the background checks to over 200 data entry personnel in non-law enforcement agencies, the state set up a publicly-accessible web site with a single shared username and password.

The data entered in the site included driver's license numbers, social security numbers, addresses and other personally identifying information.

Gotta' love how our government/s disregard the security of the people in so many ways.

[clublights]

JEsus...


they couldn't take the hour or two it would take to set up 200 users?

or at least narrow it down to the agencies they work for ? ( figure 4 or 5 at least )

even if you named the users temp1 temp 2 so on and so on ... then hashed random passwords.... no more then an hour or two of work I would think. ( at least on my server that is all it would take )

[sellersm]

If a 'private business' did this, they'd be hurting right now. Where's the accountability of this g-v agency? That's right. Nowhere to be found... The lack of the g-v accountability bites the citizen yet again. Tell me again why we put up with this?

[cstone]

If a 'private business' did this, they'd be hurting right now. Where's the accountability of this g-v agency? That's right. Nowhere to be found... The lack of the g-v accountability bites the citizen yet again. Tell me again why we put up with this?

I chose to leave my native state of Maryland, never to reside there again. Consider that the choice of an informed consumer.