New Employee Accidentally Exposes Personal Information of Over 130,000 Investment Advisors

A new employee that was hired to work for the Massachusetts secretary of state’s office, sent a CD-ROM to IA Week, an investment industry publication, which included public information from the Securities Division. The list of registered investment companies, however, was not supposed to include information such as Social Security numbers, birthdates and birth places, and physical information such as height, weight, hair and eye color.

This information was supposed to be removed before sending outside of the department; however, a new employee made a mistake by not taking out the information and sending the data as it was, personally identifiable information and all.

The CD-ROM was returned, and there is no reason to believe that the information was used or accessed by anyone other than the employee and recipient. But if anyone feels they may be at risk, it is recommended that those concerned about their financial or personal information invest in the best credit monitoring service or identity theft protection service.