The revelation that Texas state officials have admitted to the personal details of 3.5 million citizens being exposed to the public on the Net for around 12 months has been met with horror by Phil Lieberman, managing director of Lieberman Software.

 According to the MD of the privileged identity management specialist, the incident highlights the dangers of failing to use high-level security and audit controls on private data.

"This really should not have happened. It's a breakdown of security policies and means that the names and addresses, as well as the social security numbers of 3.5 million Texans are now - maybe, maybe not - in the public domain," he said.

 "If it's the latter, then thank goodness. Regardless, however, the Texan State Comptroller will be praying that this instant identity theft kit database will not fall into the hands of cybercriminals - which I think is  actually a pretty forlorn hope," he added.

Lieberman went on to say that the data seems to have passed around multiple state agencies, resulting in a classic case of too many people having access, with predictable consequences.

The fact that the data was unencrypted - which was apparently against state policy - was the final element in what could well turn out to be a perfect storm on the security front, and may end up costing the state government billions in legal payouts if hackers get hold of the data.

"When I read that the data had been hanging around on a public server that had been accessible since the start of last year, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. This is right up there with the now infamous HMRC disk data loss of November 2007," he said.

"That incident (http://bit.ly/8kyOhm) - which involved the personal details of 25 million UK claimants of child benefit going on electronic walkabout - fortunately never resulted in the data falling into the wrong hands - or, at least, a link was never established. It is to be hoped that the Texas data file incident has a similar favourable outcome," he added.

For more on Lieberman Software: www.liebsoft.com

For more on the Texas personal privacy massacre: http://bit.ly/fpzrBe

ENDS

For further Information:

Bill Boyle

Eskenzi PR Ltd.

Tel:     +44(0)20 71 832 840

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