Stolen laptop with employee information- yet again
The Associated Press reported that a Williams Cos. Inc. laptop containing personal and compensation information was stopen from a workers vehicle. The laptop had over 4,400 current and former employees records. Information like names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and compensation data was on it. How many times have wee seen this story?
They said the laptop was password protected. Well then lets not worry eh? A password, run for Ze Hillz! They did not say whether other security measures like application security risk assessment and network security audit tools were used in place other than the PGP Whole Disk encryption , or of any kind of remote wiping utility was in place or even if a hard disk password was used. The people with stolen data can only hope this might be the case.
So not we have the hoke pokey dance of checking credit, getting free one year membership to credit monitoring, buring down the barn now that the horse was stolen, all that good stuff.
Here is a list fo some recent thefts
records | date | organizations |
---|---|---|
1,084 | 2009-08-06 | Colorado Department of Corrections |
131,000 | 2009-08-04 | United States Army National Guard |
1,000 | 2009-08-04 | New Hampshire Department of Corrections |
4,400 | 2009-07-31 | Williams Companies, Inc. |
766 | 2009-07-28 | University of Colorado CO Springs |
573,928 | 2009-07-25 | Network Solutions |
900 | 2009-07-24 | Hampton Redevelopment and Housing Authority |
1,000 | 2009-07-23 | American International Group (AIG), American Life Insurance Co Japan |
180,000 | 2009-07-22 | HSBC Holdings plc, HSBC Life |
1,917 | 2009-07-22 | HSBC Holdings plc, HSBC Actuaries |
The main problem with these events is that the user is uneducated when it comes to security and don’t bother to go for a security penetration test or information security risk assessment. No matter what kind of technology you put in place, the user can find a way around it to compromise your security. First educate them, then worry about technology to protect them from their own stupidity.
Gary Bahadur
o:888-Zcurity-911, c: 917-568-7917, f: 866-633-6601
Address: 20801 Biscayne Blvd, Suite 403, Aventura, FL 33180
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