This month has been particularly prevalent for the loss of personal information. At the beginning of the month it was reported that Club Nintendo had been breached with the personal data of up to 4 million stolen by attackers [1]. Subsequently, the forums of Ubuntu were hacked with the loss of 1.82 million usernames, passwords and email addresses [2]. Additionally, Apple have announced that their developer website has had an unknown amount of personal data stolen [3].

However, this is not all. TheChicago Tribunewrites that the personal information of 2300 users of Morningstar Document Research services may have been compromised [4]. The web forums of NASDAQ were reported to have been compromised with an unknown amount of personal information affected [5]. And six people were fired for inappropriate access to patient health records from the California hospital where Kim Kardashian recently gave birth [6].

Not only does lost personal data cause distress to individuals and put them at risk of fraud from the attackers using the stolen details to gain unauthorized access to services by impersonating the compromised individual, but it can also lead to significant fines being levied against the offending organization. This month, WellPoint agreed to pay$1.7 million to the US Dept. of Health and Human Services to settle allegations that their IT systems did not adequately secure private information [7]. Sony agreed not to contest a fine of