[privacy] FTC Laptop Theft Exposes Consumer Data

["Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

...and the beat goes on. Unbelievable.

Hat-tip, Alex.

Brian Krebs:

[snip]

The Federal Trade Commission -- an agency whose mission includes
consumer protection and occasionally involves suing companies for
negligence in protecting customer information -- today disclosed a
recent theft of two laptop computers containing personal and financial
data on consumers.

In a statement, the FTC said two employee laptops were stolen from a
locked vehicle. The PCs contained data on about 110 people that was
"gathered in law enforcement investigations and included, variously,
names, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and in some
instances, financial account numbers."

The commission said it has "no reason to believe the information on the
laptops, as opposed to the laptops themselves, was the target of the
theft. In addition, the stolen laptops were password protected and the
personal information was a very small part of several thousand files
contained in one of the laptops." The agency also said it would offer
affected individuals one year of free credit monitoring.

[snip]

More here:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/06/ftc_laptop_theft_exposes_consu.html

- ferg


--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg () netzero net or fergdawg () sbcglobal net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

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