Jordanian Social Networking Site: 187 Identities Exposed
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 28, 2007 UPDATED: October 1, 2007Media Contact: Aaron Titus
(202) 669-2969
AMMAN, Jordan. In late August, 2007, the Liberty Coalition discovered a text file containing sensitive personal information for approximately 187 people, posted by a user on the Jordanian social networking site, Jeeran.com. This file contained names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, Mothers' maiden Names, Drivers License Numbers, Dates of Birth, Credit Card information, ATM Pins, Bank Accounts, PayPal account information, and other sensitive data. On October 1, 2007, Jeeran.com President & Co-founder Omar F. Koudsi e-mailed SSNBreach.org to emphasize that the company "quickly... co-operated in removing the data." Jeeran.com did in fact remove the information within 48 hours of notification. However, they have not confirmed how long the file was available on their recalcitrant user's page.
Individuals on this list were most likely victims of a "phishing" scam, where a malicious individual sets up a website that looks exactly like a merchant's website (like paypal), in order to lure the victim into revealing sensitive information.
Individuals affected by this exposure should immediately visit www.nationalidwatch.org and search for their names, to confirm what types of personal information were exposed. NationalIDWatch.org has a list of recommended steps victims should take.
About NationalIDWatch.org
National ID Watch is a search engine for personal information breaches. Sponsored by the Washington, DC non-profit Liberty Coalition, NationalIDWatch.org provides more than a million free personalized Identity Exposure Reports™ as a public service.
Each Identity Exposure Report (IXR) documents what types of personal information were exposed (such as Social Security Numbers, Birth Dates, Addresses, etc.), without revealing them. Each IXR also details the situation surrounding each exposure, and contact information of those responsible for the breach. Armed with this information, victims can further investigate, take action, or correct harm.