Donors to Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman’s campaign reacted angrily to the news that his campaign website hosted a completely unprotected datebase that contained their names, addresses, credit card numbers, and 3 digit security codes. The breach was revealed by the site Wikileaks.org and the Minnesota Independent. Wikileaks sent an email out to the donors, warning them their information had been compromised. It appears Coleman, who is fighting with Democrat Al Franken for the states hotly contested Senate seat, was made aware of the breach in January but never made a statement nor contacted his donors. TheHill.com says it made contact with the campaign, who finally aknowledged the breach and is encouraging them to cancel their credit cards.

 

          Campaign spokesman Cullen Sheehan wrote in an email to supporters that that there was no “evidence that our database was downloaded by any unauthorized party,” but he doesn’t dispute the possibility that security has been breached. Several IT professionals interviewed by the Minnesota Independent in late January revealed they had downloaded the database, which was not password protected. This fact seems to contradict Sheehan’s report about findings by federal authorities looking into the case. They “did not find evidence that our database was downloaded by any unauthorized party.”

Um, Mr. Sheehan? Unless you gave Wikileaks.org permission to download it and post parts of it on its website, or those IT professionals,  it sounds to me like it was downloaded by several unauthorized parties. Ignorance at its best.  The good news is there have been no reports of fraudulent credit card activity linked to the breach.