The State of California is resorting to good old-fashioned U.S. mail to notify 1.4 million California residents that their personal information may have been compromised as a result of a hacking incident.
The warning was made necessary by a hack-attack on the computer systems at U.C. Berkely, through which the hacker gained access to the names, addresses, birth dates, and social security numbers of approximately one-half of 1.4million participants in California’s “Home Supportive Services” program, a program through which caregivers provide in-home care to the sick and elderly.
The information had been sent to a researcher at U.C. Berkeley, presumably to assist in a research project.
The state decided to turn to the U.S. post office after it set up a hotline, and a website, to notify the public about the security breach, and had a poor response to both. Only 9,000 people called the hotline, and barely 1,000 visited the website. Ten-thousand down, 590,000 to go.
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Not coincidentally, Senator Debra Bowen has introduced legislation which would prohibit the state from again sharing such information other than when required by law enforcement needs.
You can read more about this at [Page no longer available – we have linked to the archive.org version instead].
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