FAA officials had to admit that hackers breached one of the agency’s servers, stealing 48 files. Two of the files contained information on 45,000 current and former FAA employees, including sensitive information that could potentially make them vulnerable to identity theft.

The security breach, although significant and potentially far reaching, demonstrates the problems of securing federal computer systems and difficulty in evading every potential attack.

Most of the files that the hackers copied contained useless test data, according to FAA officials. It remains unclear if the server also coincidentally contained old sensitive data or if agency employees were using real information in a test environment. The compromised records were from 2006, according to FAA officials.

>> Read more

Another day, another data breach.

If you bought something at a Best Buy store in West Palm Beach, Fla., late last year, or stayed at a Wyndham hotel in Florida last summer, or use a U.S. government travel Web site you might want to check your credit card statements closely.

Best Buy warned this week that 4,000 customers of a store in West Palm Beach may have had their credit card information stolen when they made their purchases.

The chain terminated the employment of a worker at the store after learning that a skimming device was used to steal data from the magnetic strips on credit cards last November and December, according to an advisory issued by Best Buy (PDF).

Best Buy said it learned of the data breach on January 5 and that the employee was taken into federal custody on January 7.

Read more…