Reed Elsevier announced that LexisNexis had initiated a review on March 9, after it identified a number of incidents of potentially fraudulent access to information at its recently acquired Seisint unit.
The in-depth review analyzed data search activity for the past two years. LexisNexis has concluded that unauthorized persons, primarily using IDs and passwords of legitimate Seisint customers, may have acquired personal-identifying information, such as Social Security numbers (SSN) or Driver’s License numbers (DLN), of individuals in the U.S. in some 59 incidents. LexisNexis has alerted law enforcement authorities and is proactively assisting in investigations.
“We have undertaken and completed this extensive review to ensure we have a clear understanding of the extent to which information on individuals may have been fraudulently acquired. We are taking action to notify individuals where we found some indication that they might have some risk of identity theft or fraud, even if that risk did not appear to be significant,” said Kurt Sanford, CEO, Corporate and Federal Markets, LexisNexis. “We regret that consumers, who traditionally are the primary beneficiaries of our risk management products and services, may have been affected by these events. We have taken a number of significant actions in recent weeks to further guard against these types of fraudulent intrusions at our customer sites and to enhance our security procedures and policies overall.”
In addition to the 30,000 individuals already notified, LexisNexis will begin notifying approximately 280,000 additional individuals whose information may have been acquired during these recently identified incidents. LexisNexis will offer free support services to individuals who receive the notification, to monitor and protect them from possible fraud associated with identity theft, including credit bureau reports, credit monitoring for one year and fraud insurance. In addition, LexisNexis will provide fraud counseling services or specialized assistance on a case-by-case basis to any individual who has been the victim of identity theft related to these instances.
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