Sony, Citigroup, Michael’s stores, Epsilon, Massachusetts unemployment recipients, Texas state retirees, etc., etc.  Data breaches this year have affected hundreds of millions of accounts of all stripes and it might just be time for a new law.

OK, new law haters, there’s some rationale here. Wildly inconsistent reporting by companies (and government agencies) has left consumers ignorant of their status as victims. And wildly inconsistent levels of security of personal data has caused some companies to give up their customer records to thieves by the million.

Data breach news tends to trickle out and usually those affected find out quite some time after their information has been sent to parts unknown. Citi

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A massive data breach at Sony’s PlayStation Network has left customers worrying about that their personal information including credit card information. Sony is hoping to ease concerns by offering free identity theft protection to affected customers.

The PlayStation Network links gamers worldwide in live play and serves the company’s Qriocity movie and music services.

Sony says the identity theft protection will be free for 12 months after enrollment. The company says account holders should expect an email in coming days with instructions on how to enroll.

Those who enroll will receive monthly status reports and alerts if the program detects their personal information is being misused. The program also includes an insurance policy that provides up to $1 million in relief for covered costs for a year after an identity theft incident.

Customers will have until June 18th to sign up for the program.

Sony shut down its PlayStation Network on April 20, a day after it said it began investigating unusual activity. The

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It seems that major data breaches are happening on a daily basis these days.  Just recently we had the much covered Epsilon breach, as well as the recent attack on security provider Barracuda Networks – just to name a few.

Today we are speaking with Greg Reber, founder and CEO of AsTech Consulting. Si

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Health Net who provides health insurance to 6 million people nationwide, has suffered a large data breach affecting around 2 million people.

The California based company lost data servers containing health and financial records for 1.9 million customers. The personal data also included Social Security numbers.

“While the [internal] investigation continues, Health Net has made the decision out of an abundance of caution to notify the individuals whose information is on the drives,” the company said in a statement.

 “Health Net has agreed to provide two years of free credit monitoring services to its California enrollees, in addition to identity theft insurance, fraud resolution and restoration of credit files, if needed,” department spokeswoman Lynne Randolph said in a statement.

In January, Health Net learned it was missing some computer server drives, when its information-technology vendor couldn’t find them, the state Attorney General’s Office said Monday. The drivers

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Yesterday, it was announced that McDonalds Corporation experienced a significant data breach where customer data was compromised via a third-party vendor. Basically, the attackers were able to access the sensitive McDonald’s customer data through a couple levels of subcontractors that manage the company’s email marketing campaigns.

A company called Arc Worldwide manages McDonald’s promotional e-mail campaigns — which as you can imagine is very extensive and customer data heavy. Well it turns out that a subcontractor to Arc Worldwide that distributes the actual email campaigns was hacked. So, it was a sub of a sub that was breached. The good news was that no social security numbers or credit card information were stolen.

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Welcome to the Monday Morning Kick Off post from the ITAC blog. As our every faithful readers know, we aim to provide the most comprehensive compilation of identity theft, data breach and cyber security stories you need to start the work week. Did you know that 500 million sensitive records have been breached in the past 5 years? Neither did we, and as shocking as it may be, it is not too surprising. Read about this and much more in our kick off post for the week of August 30. Happy Monday.

500 Million Sensitive Records Breached Since 2005 Employees losing laptop computers, hackers downloading credit card numbers and sensitive personal data accidentally exposed online — the Chronology of Data Breaches shows hundreds of ways that the personal information of consumers is lost, stolen or exposed. T

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