SSN breach, Round 2

Yesterday the Brooks household received official notice from the Davidson County Election Commission that our SSN's had been compromised. We also got notices from all three credit reporting agencies acknowledging our initial phoned in fraud alerts. (The Post Office may get the immediate financial bump from all the notices flying back and forth.)

Experian gets an A for being the easiest to read and easiest on the eyes. TransUnion seems stuck in DOS format using a dot-matrix printer, but their website is much easier to use.

The Election Commission couldn't have made their letter much more bland and 'oh by the way-ish'. Seems to me it could have been formatted better. Something like:

Dear Voter:

YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER HAS BEEN STOLEN AND YOU MUST TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION TO PROTECT YOUR IDENTITY.

would have been a better way to begin the letter instead of waiting 6 lines. It also doesn't come with a real signature unless Ray Barrett normally writes in perfect Script MT Bold.

So now we've got to gather documents, write letters and send it all off certified to the three credit reporting agencies for a freeze on our credit. The upside to it being stolen is the freeze will be free.

Equifax instructions.
Experian instructions.
TransUnion instructions.

And since I need a copy of the police report I finally got around to reading it. I don't know why Mr. Murphy is outing himself in this morning's Tennessean. It looks like his name has been redacted from the police report. The police report does say that he noticed a window being up but made an assumption about why it was so and continued on. Isn't that something the previous guard should have mentioned, if such had been the case? It was the next guard (a woman, btw) who noticed and actually went in to check it out.

Op #1 [Murphy] advised on Sunday 12/23/07 around 1800 hrs he observed the roll up door/window to the Metro Davidson County Election Commission (on the inside) was raised up a little; believing this was normal as that door/window was left up to accommodate electrical wiring, OP#1 continued his shift at location.

OP#2 advised on 12/26/07 around 0100 hrs as she was conducting her rounds she observed the same door/window raised; noticing the Christmas decorations lying in the floor, OP#2 checked the Election Commission Office further and found entry had been made thru the window to the outside wall by a rock thrown thru it. OP#2 advised she checked the building and was not able to confirm if anything was stolen.

No security is provided on Sats at location and no alarm calls occurred were reported/dispatched after 12/21/07. ID responded to process scene.

Yet, Mr. Murphy is quoted in this morning's Tennessean as saying "he noticed that Christmas decorations and a roll-up window at the election commission were out of place when he started work at 6 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 23." Why don't the police report and Murphy's later version to the paper jibe? Why the door and decorations caught the attention of OP#2 enough to check and not Murphy is why he's no longer employed.

Metro has a whole web page on the incident--to include links to the hearings the Public Safety Commission had for online viewing.

I'm glad the Mayor is back and requiring all departments to reevaluate their security procedures. This time let's make sure that the IT department's recommendations are followed and we know who gets the responsibility. I do think CM Jim Gotto (District 12 Hermitage) is right to call for an independent audit. I think those guys are going to be very busy once they start looking into this.