A subsidiary of Reed Elsevier has been hacked potentially compromising records relating to 32,000 people.

The FBI and Secret Service are investigating how hackers got access to databases owned by Seisint - part of Reed's LexisNexis business. The breach was revealed after a customer complained about a billing error. The information accessed includes names, addresses, social security details and driver's licence information but not credit cards or medical records.

The firm said: "The incidents arose from the misappropriation by third parties of IDs and passwords from legitimate customers."

Reed is contacting all 32,000 to warn them of potential problems and offer them credit monitoring and practical help.

Reed paid $775m for Seisint which specialises in secure online access to public records - its main customers are federal and legal organisations.

Press release on Reed's site here. (http://www.reed-elsevier.com/index.cfm?articleid=1258&articleaction=searchreturn&type=recent)®

Related stories

Fraudsters expose 100,000 across US (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/16/california_data_hack/)
Big company, crap security (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/08/big_company_security_breaches/)
Limp Bizkit lead claims hackers stole his sex video (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/04/fred_durst_suit/)
T-Mobile to probe Paris' security breach (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/22/tmobile_paris/)