Data breach hits home

I haven’t been this ticked off at the Boston Globe since its editors denied me a college internship in 1978.

Those of you outside the New England area may not have heard that the newspaper and a sister publication, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, perpetrated a rather unusual personal-data breach upon some 240,000 subscribers. (This time it looks as though no one in IT has to worry about catching the blame.)

The Globe was kind enough to provide an online resource that allows subscribers to learn if their info was among that scattered about the countryside. So first thing this morning I entered my telephone number and ZIP code into the form, and … well, I’ve obviously telegraphed the punch line. My wife was calling American Express this morning when I left the house.

Of course, it was only last week that I was on the phone to my financial advisor asking if perhaps our personal info had been let loose in the data breach episode involving Ameriprise. He said if I hadn’t received a notification letter I was in the clear. I hadn’t. The advisor, on the other hand, had.

Are we having fun yet?