back to article Montana loses data on MORE PEOPLE THAN LIVE IN MONTANA

The state of Montana is warning citizens and offering free credit monitoring and identity protection service after a data breach exposed information on 1.3 million people. The state Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) is providing notification to citizens after hackers breached one of the department's …

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  1. Don Jefe

    Monitoring Service Costs?

    Providing identity fraud protection services costs just $2(ish) per person? Am I missing something? That seems like an awfully low price for doing 1,000,000 of anything.

    If that figure is accurate, why the hell aren't those services provided by default as a sort of 'value added' feature of your Social Security Number? It costs more than $2 for most public servants to pull up your records.

    It's simply poor risk management to have Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies devoting enormous resources to help prevent and prosecute identity fraud if $2 per person will mitigate such fraud. You'd be freeing up huge amounts of money and manpower that could go to other things.

    1. auburnman

      Re: Monitoring Service Costs?

      The $2 cost is government mandated, not the actual cost. My hazy recollection of how it works is that the credit report services keep all this financial data already as part of their business of selling credit checks to companies; because citizens usually have the right to see information held about them under whichever Data Protection Act is applicable in the region by paying a 'fair' charge for the admin cost of providing the records, the government(s) usually set the price of this charge to prevent the credit agencies gouging people or setting the fees arbitrarily high.

      In practice what usually happens is the option to get your credit report at the cheap fee is either hidden away in a tiny corner of the website or only available on written (snail mail) request. If you do get the cheapie report it will be nigh on unreadable with unexplained acronyms and horribly formatted layout. Below that will be an advert for the 'Extended' credit report at the 'low introductory cost of $6.99/Month' followed by the small print that shafts you.

  2. RedneckMother

    As I recall, my ex-wife's cousin's great uncle's best friend's mother-in-law once received a speeding ticket in Montana. Do I qualify for credit monitoring and identity theft protection at their expense?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Only if she was driving a car registered in your name.

  3. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "we are notifying those whose personal information could have been on the server"

    Um, doesn't that mean everybody in Montana ? Shouldn't they just go for a space in the local paper and say "You, dear reader, are eligible for a one year credit monitoring contract free of charge if you live in Montana. Please contact your local Sheriff's office for details." ?

    How can that simultaneously have more records than people in Montana AND need to sift who might affected and who might not be to notify them ?

    Ah, the wonderful world of administrative technology. Reminds me of the ol' "you don't need a computer to screw things up, but with a computer you can really screw things up".

    1. NumptyScrub

      Re: "we are notifying those whose personal information could have been on the server"

      "To err is human. To completely screw things up requires a computer."

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Do you live, ...

    ...have you ever lived or at some time in the future do you intentd to live in Monatana.

    Note: Answering yes will not affect our ability to lose your data.

    Could explain how they have more records to lose than people.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Did they have a Chicago moment?

    Nope, that would have been their voter registration list.

  6. Sir Lancelot

    Miley Miley Miley!

    Does the list include Hannah Montana?

    La da di da di...we love to party...

  7. Tom 13
    Meh

    I have mixed feeling about the events of this report.

    Thumbs down for having a server with that much PII close enough to the internet to compromise it.

    Thumbs up for the apparently quick response and not trying to hide what happened. Averaging the two and masking give us the posted icon.

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