Security blunder: McAfee issues public apology

James Riley
Thursday, 30 July 2009 11:18

Business IT - Technology

US-based security specialist McAfee has issued a public apology for a serious privacy breach in which the company sent personal contact details of more than 1,400 security professionals as an attachment to a bulk email.

A McAfee statement blamed “human error” for the embarrassing blunder in which the contact list for its McAfee Strategic Security Summit – held two weeks ago in Sydney –was “mistakenly attached to a promotional e-mail being sent to conference delegates.”

But the company downplayed the significance of the information accidently broadcast, saying that while the email attachment included “common conference registration information,” it did not include any of the delegates’ financial information.

McAfee followed up the security breach with an email to all recipients telling them the contact list had been sent in error and requesting they delete it.

The email response, which was published to Flickr by one of the recipients, read: “You may have been inadvertently sent information containing registration details from out recent security summit. This was sent in error and we therefore request that this information be deleted and we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused as a result of this.”

The company later issued its formal statement of apology.

“Due to a human error, the contact list for a seminar (held two weeks ago in Sydney) was mistakenly attached to a promotional e-mail being sent to conference delegates,” the McAfee statement said.

“An email was then sent asking those who may have received it to delete it. We have taken the appropriate steps to inform people of the mistake. We apologise for this error and are taking steps to ensure it doesn't happen again.”

A Sydney-based spokeswoman for McAfee told iTWire the company was not sure how many people received the contact details, but that the company had done everything it could to identify recipients and to request that they delete the information.

The company had contacted all people affected by the mistake to inform them of the extent of the security breach.

Senior McAfee executives were not available for comment.