Yesterday, it was announced that McDonalds Corporation experienced a significant data breach where customer data was compromised via a third-party vendor. Basically, the attackers were able to access the sensitive McDonald’s customer data through a couple levels of subcontractors that manage the company’s email marketing campaigns.

A company called Arc Worldwide manages McDonald’s promotional e-mail campaigns — which as you can imagine is very extensive and customer data heavy. Well it turns out that a subcontractor to Arc Worldwide that distributes the actual email campaigns was hacked. So, it was a sub of a sub that was breached. The good news was that no social security numbers or credit card information were stolen.

According to PC World, this is an example of hackers being extra smart and targeting contracting companies that often deal with massive amounts of customer data for their clients (i.e. often m

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Spammers, scammers, and thieves are paying attention.

In the physical world, when communities become larger and more densely populated, crime rises. This also applies to online communities, like Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter’s “direct messages” and “mention” functions are laden with spam, often prompting users to click various links. Why anyone would want me to “Take a Good Look at Hypnotherapy” is beyond me, but someone must be buying because the spam keeps coming.

Common Twitter scams include:

Hijacked Accounts: Numerous Twitter (and Facebook) accounts, including those of President Obama, Britney Spears, Fox News and others have been taken over and used to ridicule, harass, or commit fraud.

Social Media Identity Theft: Hundreds of imposter accounts are set up every day. Sarah Palin, St. Louis Cardina

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Last year around the holidays I wrote about burglars preying on churches.

This year is no different. The Boston Globe reports “You know things are bad when they start knocking off churches. And judging by the number of churches knocked off recently, things are very bad indeed.”

“I’m seeing levels of desperation out there I haven’t seen for a long while,’’ said the churches Priest. “Like most priests and ministers, he sees a lot of people who live on the margins. They come to the three churches he oversees for food and laundry money and help with the rent. They come because they don’t belong anywhere else.

And sometimes they come to steal. There have been 15 break-ins at Boston area churches in the last few months. And that’s just the Catholic ones.”

It doesn’t matter where, when or who, a burglar will go where there is easy access and easy money, or goods to be resold.

Often, it is those on the inside that have knowledge of how things work and where they are. So, it is important to

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University of Wisconsin-Madison officials say hackers broke into their computer systems and had access to the Social Security numbers of 60,000 people related to the university.

The university became aware of the problem on October 26th and notified the students, faculty and staff members in a letter dated November 30th, said UW-Madison spokesman John Lucas.

An investigation by University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Information Technology and office of computer security found nothing to suggest that anyone had downloaded or used the information in any unauthorized way, Lucas said. The identities of those who obtained unauthorized access remain unknown.

UW discovered the hack from what they referred to as a breach in the “Legacy Database.”  The “Legacy Database” refers to Wiscards printed prior to 2008 that had student’s Social Security numbers embedded on the cards, Lucas said.

“It’s important for current students within the last two years (to know they) are not affected by this… the Wiscards with the Social Security numbers were deactivated in 2008,” Lucas said. “It doesn’t necessar

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