VeriSign worker exits after laptop security breach

[Richard Forno <rforno () infowarrior org>]

(Good riddance to this idiot.......no sympathy from this former VRSN
employee.....rf)


VeriSign worker exits after laptop security breach
Man overboard
By John Leyden → More by this author
Published Monday 6th August 2007 11:20 GMT


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/06/verisign_laptop_theft/

VeriSign has warned workers of the theft of a laptop that contained their
personal information.

The laptop was stolen from a car parked in the garage of a California worker
sometime on the night of 12 July. The laptop contained personal information
- name, Social Security number, date of birth, salary information, telephone
numbers, and home addresses - of an unknown number of VeriSign employees.
Bank account numbers or password information were not stored on the machine.

Data on the machine was not encrypted, in contravention of VeriSign
policies, raising ID theft concerns. The unnamed worker involved has left
VeriSign while the web security firm has responded by promising to tighten
up its security policies.

In a letter to workers, VeriSign said the laptop was probably stolen in a
random burglary. Nonetheless, the security infrastructure firm is offering
to pay a year's credit watch monitoring subscription to those potentially
affected.

Reports of the breach first surfaced on Wizbang on Friday. Prompted by our
follow-up questions, Verisign issued a statement explaining its response to
the breach.

    VeriSign is taking the recent laptop theft very seriously. The Company
initiated an investigation as soon as the theft was discovered. We have no
reason to believe that the thief or thieves acted with the intent to extract
and use this information. The local police have said the theft may be tied
to a series of neighborhood burglaries. We disabled any access by the
employee’s computer to the VeriSign network. The employee involved in this
incident has since left VeriSign.

    The Company has a policy on how to manage laptops that contain sensitive
information and company data - which in this case was not followed. That
policy includes not leaving laptops in vehicles in plain view, keeping the
amount of confidential and sensitive data stored on laptops to a minimum,
and using data encryption tools to protect those sets of data that
absolutely must be stored on a laptop. Going forward, we will continue to
review our security procedures to prevent future human errors of this type.

VeriSign specialises in marketing the digital certificates and other
elements of the infrastructure that underpin secure web transactions, so any
kind of security breach is embarrassing.

It's far from alone in having problems with lost or stolen laptops
containing sensitive information, however.

Similar thefts have sparked security flaps at Marks & Spencer, Nationwide
Building Society, the Metropolitan Police, the US Department of Veterans
Affairs, and others. ®


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