Verizon Suffers Security Slip in Security Seminar Invites

Talk about awesome irony: Verizon accidentally included the private e-mail addresses of 1,200 IT professionals in a mass-mailed invitation for a seminar about protecting personal data.

The communications company sent more than a dozen e-mails containing the addresses, according to technology professionals who contacted Network World. The messages touted a series of upcoming events, including one called “Secure the Information, Secure the Infrastructure,” and another called the “Data Breach Investigations Report Road Show.” The Verizon employee who sent them put all the e-mail addresses in plain view in the “To” field, rather than obscuring them in the “BCC” field as most mass mailings would do, the recipients say.

When one IT worker responded to point out the problems, Verizon wrote back and apologized for the “lapse in judgment,” he tells Network World. The worker says he received 17 different messages from Verizon within the day, each with hundreds of e-mail addresses listed at the top.

Let’s hope Verizon saved a front-row seat at the seminar for its employee to attend.