Boston Globe - The personal financial information of up to 210,000 unemployed Massachusetts residents may have been stolen in a data breach caused by a virus discovered in state labor department computers four weeks ago, officials said yesterday. Names, addresses, and Social Security numbers, among other data, may have been taken, said John Glennon, chief information officer for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. The number of affected recipients is probably a small fraction of the total number of potential victims, according to Glennon. The virus attempted to transmit confidential information to digital thieves, he added, but it was not clear how much, or even whether, any data was successfully stolen.
Not to be crass here, but I don’t think the hysteria is necessary. I mean these are people on the unemployment list, right? What is someone going to do with their social security number? Get denied for a bank loan? Hack their emptied account?
If ever there was a time for your shit to get hacked, when you're on unemployment is it. Plus if you’re newly unemployed this is your chance to strike it rich. Get down to some ATM you’ve never used before (drive out of state, we know you’ve got nothing else to do, you’ve got no job) and withdraw everything you’ve got. Go home, claim fraud and you’re set. You’ve just doubled your net assets without breaking a sweat.
