Latest Industry News

Iron Mountain Loses More Tapes

Backup tapes from City National Bank were lost in April, but there's no evidence the data has been compromised, the bank says.

By Steven Marlin
InformationWeek
Jul 8, 2005 03:00 PM

City National Bank has become the second company in two months to experience a loss of backup tapes in transit by Iron Mountain Inc. The Los Angeles-based bank disclosed Thursday that two tapes containing sensitive data, including Social Security numbers, account numbers, and other customer information, were lost during transport to a secure storage facility.

The bank said the data was formatted to make the tapes difficult to read without highly specialized skills, but declines to say if they were encrypted. It said there's no evidence that data on the tapes has been compromised or misused. Iron Mountain said it lost the tapes in April.

April 28, 2005

Robert Lemos
SecurityFocus
 

In many cases, low paid workers are handling sensitive tapes, but only a small fraction of companies are securing the data with encryption.

Boston Business Journal - May 2, 2005

Iron Mountain Inc. lost computer tapes containing information on 600,000 people employed by Time Warner Inc. since 1986, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Iron Mountain spokeswoman Melissa Burman confirmed that one box of computer tapes containing Time Warner employee records had been lost.

New York-based Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) said the U.S. Secret Service is investigating the incident.

The newspaper quoted Time Warner spokeswoman Kathy McKiernan saying the tapes were placed in a container on March 22 and failed to show up at an Iron Mountain storage facility that same day.

No evidence has turned up that the tapes' contents have been accessed or misused, but the companies have been unable to rule out foul play. Time Warner is providing affected employees with resources to monitor their credit reports.

By DAVID HAFETZ February 19, 2006 -- He feels like it's a total eclipse of his art.

The Grammy-winning producer who penned the No. 1 song "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is suing a gargantuan data-storage company for $20 million, claiming it lost "priceless" original recordings. Jim Steinman claims Boston-based Iron Mountain Records Management Inc. lost the tape recordings of the 1983 Bonnie Tyler hit, as well as "Left in the Dark" performed by Barbra Streisand in 1984.

Steinman, who filed suit on Valentine's Day in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, says they are "irreplaceable."

"For a composer, it's like losing the Mona Lisa," said Steinman, who wrote Meat Loaf's hit record "Bat out of Hell" and shared a producer Grammy for Celine Dion's "Falling into You."

Steinman gave the tapes to Iron Mountain in August 2004. They were to be locked in an upstate mountain facility. But Steinman says they may have been misplaced in a New Jersey warehouse. "They say, 'We're a mighty fortress on a mountain where nothing can happen,' " he said.

"Meanwhile, a couple schmucks from New Jersey show up."