Metropolis Reality Forums - Laptop with DC employees' data stolen

Sponsored by: The Fans!

Welcome, Guest. Please Login or Register.
Nov 24^th, 2024, 9:14am

Upcoming Premiere Dates:
Survivor 23, Season premiere
Thursday, September 14 (8:00-9:30 PM, ET/PT) on CBS

Metropolis Reality Forums Ť Laptop with DC employees' data stolen ť

   Metropolis Reality Forums
   Off-Topic Forums
   In the News (Moderators: lakelady, yesteach, MediaScribe, Bumper, Isle_be_back)
   Laptop with DC employees' data stolen

Previous topic | New Topic | Next topic »

Pages: 1

Add Poll

Notify of replies

Send Topic

Author

Topic: Laptop with DC employees' data stolen (Read 178 times)

Rhune
ForumsNet Administrator

Gender:

Posts: 292

Laptop with DC employees' data stolen
« on: Jun 18^th, 2006, 6:11pm »

Quote

Modify

Laptop with DC employees' data stolen

Sunday, June 18, 2006; Posted: 11:27 a.m. EDT (15:27 GMT)

A laptop containing the Social Security numbers and other personal data of 13,000 District of Columbia employees and retirees has been stolen, officials said.

The computer was stolen Monday from the Washington home of an employee of ING U.S. Financial Services, said officials with the company, which administers the district's retirement plan.

The company did not notify city employees of the theft until late Friday because it took officials several days to determine what information was stored on the laptop, ING spokeswoman Caroline Campbell said.

The laptop was not password-protected and the data was not encrypted, Campbell said.

The company said it was working with district police and had hired a private investigator. Police would not confirm the theft Saturday.

City officials said they were disturbed about how the data was stored and that the company waited to report the theft.

"We are concerned that this information was being managed without protection," said Mary Ann Young, spokeswoman for the city's chief financial officer.

She said the district expects details about the incident from ING this week.

The company has sent letters to all affected employees warning them of the possibility of identity theft. ING also will set up and pay for a year of credit monitoring and identity fraud protection, Campbell said.

"For us, this is very unfortunate," she said. "But we're moving forward, we're very focused and committed to find any other laptops that don't have encryption software and to fix that. This incident revealed a gap."

Two other ING laptops containing information on 8,500 Florida hospital workers were stolen in December, but the employees were not notified until this week, said ING spokesman Chuck Eudy. Neither laptop was encrypted, he said.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.

IP Logged

Rhune
ForumsNet Administrator

Gender:

Posts: 292

Re: Laptop with DC employees' data stolen
« Reply #1 on: Jun 18^th, 2006, 6:13pm »

Quote

Modify

This on top of the veterans information being stolen....this is a disturbing trend. At some point there will be so much identity theft that social security numbers will be worthless and the credit system will have to be revised...

IP Logged

yesteach
ForumsNet Administrator

Gender:

Posts: 10465

Re: Laptop with DC employees' data stolen
« Reply #2 on: Jun 18^th, 2006, 6:20pm »

Quote

Modify

Having that sort of information on a laptop and not having password protection and/or encryption is just irresponsible on the part of the company! We have password protection on STUDENT files on our laptops and all information in secure files (anything that contains their SS#) is encrypted... and this is a rinky dink little school district with less than 1500 students... a major company of this size has no excuse for that sort of lack of security... ridiculous!

IP Logged

There are only 10 types of people in the world... those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Pages: 1

Add Poll

Notify of replies

Send Topic


Previous topic \| New Topic \| Next topic »