Data Breach At Motorola Mobility Affects Refurbished XOOM Tablets

Motorola Mobility admitted Friday in a press release that it failed to erase the sensitive personal information of original owners on refurbished tablets. The breach included about 100 Motorola XOOM WiFi tablets from a batch of 6,200. The tablets were resold by Woot.com during October through December 2011.

Motorola did not specify the types of sensitive personal information exposed, but it likely include any personal information the original tablet owners stored on their devices:

"It is possible that users might have stored photographs and documents. They may have also stored user names and passwords for email and social media accounts, as well as other password-protected sites and applications."

Ya think so? Duh! Obviously, affected consumers should change their passwords at any online bank, financial, and social networking websites; especially if you stored your passwords on your Motorola tablet. Purchasers of the affected refurbished tablets should return their devices to Motorla to ensure that the memory of each device is cleared. If you purchased a refurbished Motorola XOOM Wi-Fi tablets from Woot.com between October and December 2011, you should visit motorola.com/xoomreturn or call Motorola Mobility Customer Support (1-800-734-5870 and select Option 1) to determine if your tablet is affected.

For consumers who purchased and then returned a Motorola XOOM Wi-Fi tablet to Amazon.com, Best Buy, BJ’s Wholesale, eBay, Office Max, Radio Shack, Sam’s Club, or Staples and a few other independent retailers between March and October 2011, Motorola offers a free two-year membership with Experian’s ProtectMyID Alert credit monitoring service. The company also directed original tablet owners to contact Experian at 1-866-926-9803 to register for their complimentary credit monitoring service.

At press time, refurbished XOOM tablets were selling for about $349 on Amazon.com.

This breach is troublesome. While breaches often happen, the company should have adequately wiped all sensitive personal data from refurbished tablets. That the company failed to do so makes one wonder if any malware was transmitted to purchasers of refurbished tablets -- or of any other Motorola mobile devices.

If you were affected by this data breach, share your experience below.

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