Data Breach Alert: 2,000 investment firm clients, including Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, impacted by file sharing breach

Posted by Caitlin on July 9th, 2008

Just over six months ago, an employee of a McLean investment firm inadvertently exposed private company files while using LimeWire. This breach exposed the names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers of about 2,000 of the firm's clients, including Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer and a number of high-powered lawyers. The breach was not discovered until a LimeWire user came across the information in June. Last week the firm notified affected clients and offered six months of free credit report monitoring.

LimeWire and other file sharing programs can be configured to allow access to all or part of a user's documents. Many data breaches are unintentionally caused by these types of programs.

If you are concerned about identity theft, you may want to consider subscribing to an identity theft protection service.