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Diamond Comics Issues Warning About Social Security Number Leaks

Published Tue, 06 Sep 2022 09:57:10 -0500

Last updated Thu, 12 Dec 2024 09:59:03 -0600

Diamond Comic Distributors has issued the following warning to certain vendors about a data breach – including those from a decade and a half ago, such as Ben Tinsley. Diamond has informed them that their names and social security numbers were part of a leak. Why would Diamond even have vendors social security numbers? Well, that was from a time when Diamond paid self-publishing creators directly, and sometimes that meant social security numbers were necessary for paying American citizens. And it seems that Diamond kept them on the digital books since 2006.

This comes as a result of a ransomware attack late last year, in which it seems that personal information may have been accessed. Diamond states that they have no reason to believe the information leaked has been misused, and how widespread this issue is, we don't know. Diamond has stated they are now purging older personal information held, and offering a free one-year membership of TrueIdentity, a service that will help identify anyone who is missing your personal information.

Ben Tinsley got one of his comics distributed as Wham Bang comics by Diamond in 2009 when he received national publicity for Amber Hagerman Deserves Justice: A Night Owl Story by Tinsley and his son Jake, promoting the renewed police investigation into the murder of Amber Hagerman in the early 1990s, which saw the Tinsleys interviewed on The Today Show. That was the only one of Tinsley's comics Diamond agreed to distribute. But it would enough, it seems, to leave him vulnerable to data theft thirteen years later.

Now part of Jason Dube's Scattered Comics, Ben Tinsley published The Tinsley Boys Shared Universe comics with Kickstarter, including The Blonde Assassin, Alternative Identities, Night Owl and Genius: The Akashic Avatar written by Rachel Pollack.

Have you received any similar letters from Diamond? How far does this data leak go?

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