Now the company says that breach might have affected ten times the number of people originally thought to have been victimized.

According to the firm, data thieves might have breached computer files, giving them access to the personal data of 310,000 people. This information includes names, addresses, social security and drivers' license numbers.

Hacker Attack?

The information was fraudulently obtained the old fashioned way: The thieves tricked Seisint into giving up the information by pretending to be legitimate customers -- a tactic also used by the data thieves that raided another information broker: Choicepoint.

In Seisint's case, the thieves got a hold of legitimate customer IDs and passwords. A company spokesperson has said that login systems and other security checks have since been tightened.

Congress to Step In

Since the beginning of the year, there has been a string of high-profile identity thefts. Bank of America disclosed it lost computer tapes containing financial data of some of its customers.

The personal information of 59,000 people affiliated with California State University -- the group included prospective students, faculty and staff -- was stolen last month by hackers. The ChoicePoint scam, which was reported in February, affected as many as 145,000 consumers.

The most alarming part of this situation, perhaps, is that these are the known incidents. In the case of ChoicePoint, for example, the only reason the theft came to light was because California law required the company to tell affected consumers.

"The fact is, consumer data is semiregularly hacked and never reported to authorities," Panda Software CTO Patrick Hinojosa said.

LexisNexis' latest revelations might have been the last straw for Congress, which has been holding hearings on the vulnerability of data brokers to theft. Currently, there is no federal oversight of such companies.

However Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter has said that the need is clearly evident, given these latest events.

How heavy or light this regulation -- or indeed if it is passed at all -- remains to be seen. Much will depend on whether further thefts occur -- and are reported. Sarbanes-Oxley was only passed after the WorldCom accounting misdeeds came to light.