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|    No obligation!  For as little as $1.39/month   | |  "...less than 2 percent of stolen laptops [are ever] recovered. Over 1.5 million laptops are expected to be reported stolen in 2004..." Not convinced yet? Read below... InformationWeek Posted Jun 20, 2006 07:00 PM By Charles Babcock and Larry Greenemeier A Million Identities Stolen From Two Financial Services Firms
The losses took place the old-fashioned way--by a burglar breaking into locked premises and carrying off the computers. The thefts of personal data on nearly a million people have been revealed in the last two days, in one case from a server collecting insurance-proposal information over the Internet. But the actual loss of data took place the old fashioned way—by a burglar breaking in to locked premises and carrying off the computers. Consequently, police and insurance officials hope the physical hardware was the target, not the data. Those whose data was lost in the theft are being notified by letter this week. American International Group Inc. of New York, one of the world's largest insurance companies, said a break-in at an unspecified Midwest regional office resulted in the loss of two laptops and a server. The server contained information on 970,000 employees at several hundred companies, information that had been collected by brokers and aggregated on one computer in order to solicit a quote from AIG, according to AIG spokesman. The break-in occurred in March but has not been disclosed until recently in hopes of avoiding notifying the burglar of the valuable data on the server. The data was protected by an application that requires a user name and password to access it. If the server has been fenced or sold to an intermediary, the drive most likely has been erased and written over for reuse by its new owner, company officials say. But no one knows for sure... ...The data included Social Security numbers, "and in a few cases, personal medical information," since the brokers were seeking a quote from AIG on "excess medical" coverage, or coverage for employees who need insurance beyond the limits allowed by most health plans... Read the entire article The Mercury News Posted on Sun Jun 18, 2006 Laptop with D.C. workers' data stolen Associated Press WASHINGTON - 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. Read the entire article Tech & Trends June 9, 2006 o Vol.28 Issue 23 by Tony Bradley Protect Data On The Move Encrypting & Deleting Data On Laptops & Mobile Devices While network and security administrators continue to grapple with the finer points of securing data within the walls of the corporate network, a new threat has emerged. Larger and larger amounts of storage are being packed into smaller devices, and it seems that virtually everything is capable of transporting data. Employees transport sensitive, or possibly even confidential, information on laptops, USB thumb drives, MP3 players, cell phones, and other devices. Companies need to define policies and procedures to govern the storage and transportation of sensitive or confidential information on mobile devices. Part of the policy should include some method of encryption or the ability to encrypt or delete the data should the mobile device be lost or stolen. Remote Encryption Or Deletion With the rise in mobile computing, new classes of products have emerged to help manage the security of these remote devices. [Software such as] SecureTrieve (www.SecureTrieve.com)>,... attempts to automatically recover or hide critical files. The user can designate which files should be recovered and which files should be hidden or made invisible on the system once the device is reported missing. SecureTrieve can be put into "Travel Mode," which will proactively hide and encrypt designated files. This places responsibility on the user that he has accurately designated which files should be recovered and which files should be hidden or encrypted. In addition, the ability for SecureTrieve to download and recover the designated critical files to its servers requires that SecureTrieve be notified that the device is missing and that the system be connected to the Internet. Necessary Protection Mobile devices continue to proliferate, and vendors continue to squeeze more storage space into smaller devices. With more users transporting sensitive or confidential data that could adversely affect the company in the event of its theft or compromise, network and security administrators need to implement effective tools to secure and protect company data no matter where it is. Read the entire article Money lost to cybercrime down--again By Joris Evers Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: June 14, 2006, 1:14 PM PDT SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.--While many headlines spell doom and gloom when it comes to computer-related misdeeds, the average losses at businesses due to cybercrime continue to drop, according to a new survey. For the fourth straight year, the financial losses incurred by businesses due to incidents such as computer break-ins have fallen, according to the 2006 annual survey by the Computer Security Institute and the FBI. ...Respondents in the 2005 survey reported an average of $204,000 in cybercrime losses. This year, that's down to $168,000, about an 18 percent drop. "The danger of insiders may be somewhat overstated, according to the survey group," Richardson said. About a third of respondents said they had no losses at all due to insider threats, another 29 percent said less than one-fifth of overall losses came from insider threats. Consistent use of security technology may also contribute to the improvements,... When it comes to cybercrime losses, consumers might be bearing the brunt of them, and they are not covered by the survey, Richardson suggested. "Consumers are the low-hanging fruit," he said. Costs related to identity theft, for example, fall largely back onto the consumer, he added, even if it did start with a data breach at an enterprise. Read the entire article Laptop theft exposes Hotels.com data By Candace Lombardi Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: June 2, 2006, 8:45 AM PDT A seemingly random theft has led to another potential breach of personal data--this time name, address and credit card information from Hotels.com customers. A laptop belonging to an Ernst & Young employee was stolen in a car theft earlier this year. Ernst & Young is the auditor for Hotels.com, an Expedia company, and the laptop contained personal data on Hotels.com customers. Hotels.com was notified of the theft of the laptop, which contained data for about 243,000 customers, on May 3, a representative for Hotels.com said. "Ernst & Young informed us that the vehicle was broken into in late February," said the representative. "We immediately began reconstructing the data. Once we were notified, we began working as expeditiously as possible to determine which customers were impacted and to notify them. We began sending letters to affected customers last week." "We're the auditor for Expedia; this was part of the audit," Ken Kerrigan, deputy director of public relations for Ernst & Young, told CNET News.com on Friday. Ernst & Young was in the process of doing the audit when the car theft took place, making it entirely proper for the employee to be in possession of the information via laptop, Kerrigan said. CNET News.com obtained copies of both the Hotels.com and Ernst & Young letters to affected customers. According to the Ernst & Young letter, the Hotels.com file held certain personal information related to Hotels.com transactions, primarily from the year 2004. There were also a small number of transactions from 2003 and 2002. "We believe the transactions may have involved the payment card you used with Hotels.com or another Web site through which Hotels.com provided booking services directly to customers. Specifically, the information on the laptop may have included your name, address and some credit or debit card information you provided," the letter said. While Kerrigan said he believes the incident was "just a car theft," the financial company has taken steps to more strongly protect confidential data. "For the U.S. and Canada, as of May 31, 30,000 of our employees, which I believe is everyone, have password-protection and encryption software on their computers," Kerrigan said. He did not specify which vendor was providing the encryption software. "This computer was stolen before it was encrypted. It was password protected, but not with encryption software." Ernst & Young has had other employee laptops stolen this year as well, according to news reports. The company said it is working with authorities on the latest laptop theft. "At this time, we have no indication the information has been accessed or misused in any way," Ernst & Young said in a statement regarding the latest incident. "We are working closely with Hotels.com to reach out to their customers whose information was on the computer." Read the entire article Loan company reports loss of data on 1.3 million By Joris Evers Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: June 1, 2006, 5:47 PM PDT About 1.3 million customers of a Texas provider of student loans are at risk of ID fraud, after a contractor lost computer equipment with sensitive information on them. The equipment, which was not identified, contains the names and Social Security numbers of the borrowers, the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan company said... The hardware was lost by an employee of Hummingbird, a enterprise software company hired to prepare a document management system, it said. The information was prepared by the loan company in January for use by Hummingbird. The data was encrypted and password-protected, but subsequently decrypted and stored on the now-lost hardware by the Hummingbird employee, Texas Guaranteed Student Loan said. However, the lost hardware does require a password for access. "The data was protected through security measures, and given the technology that would be required to retrieve the data, Hummingbird believes that any misuse of the data is extremely unlikely," Toronto-based Hummingbird said. The equipment was lost on May 24, and Texas Guaranteed Student Loan was notified by Hummingbird two days later, according to the financial institution's statement. Identity theft continues to plague consumers, topping the list of fraud complaints reported to the Federal Trade Commission last year. Consumers filed more than 255,000 identity theft reports to the FTC in 2005, accounting for more than one-third of all complaints, the agency said in January. Read the entire article Veterans' data swiped in theft By Greg Sandoval Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: May 22, 2006, 2:50 PM PDT Personal information belonging to 26.5 million U.S. veterans was seized following the theft of the data from the home of a government employee, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. According to a message posted on the department's Web site on Monday, one of the department's data analysts violated procedure by taking home the information without authorization. The information was stored on a laptop, according to Avivah Litan, a security analyst for research firm Gartner. Law enforcement agencies have launched a search, the department said. The message also said that besides Social Security numbers, data lost included dates of birth for veterans and some of their wives. The employee whose house was robbed was placed on administrative leave. The number of Social Security numbers involved means this could be one of the largest thefts of SSNs ever... Others who have suffered the loss of such information are the Metropolitan State College in Denver, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Los Angeles' Department of Social Services, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Because of the growing number of Social Security number thefts, Gartner has advised businesses to stop relying on SSNs as "the ultimate identifier" of individuals, says Litan, the firm's security analyst. "If you add up all these thefts, we estimate that one out of seven Social Security numbers is in criminal hands," Litan said. "Or the numbers are in the hands of illegal immigrants or are sitting somewhere in a chat room. You can't rely on them anymore." Read the entire article Veterans Affairs chief calls for stronger data laws By Anne Broache Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: June 8, 2006, 12:57 PM PDT WASHINGTON--The head of the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department told Congresson Thursday that the massive theft of personal data at his agency signalsthe need for more "teeth" in federal data security laws. "While we have a system in the government of doing background investigations(on those to) whom we will give access to classified information, we do nothave a similar screen (for) those to whom we will give enormous amounts of (personal) data," VA Secretary R. James Nicholson told the U.S. House ofRepresentatives Committee on Government Reform. Nicholson's appearance before politicians came as his agency deals withcontinued revelations over news that the personal data of as many as 26.5million veterans--including nearly 2 million active-duty military, NationalGuard, and Reserve personnel--was stolen. That information resided on agovernment-owned laptop computer and hard drive pilfered from a VA analyst'shome in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. A 34-year employee of theagency, he had been toting the gear home for the past three years inviolation of agency policy. The theft didn't come to Nicholson's attention until 13 days after the data analyst reported the incident to superiors, the secretary said. The analystwas fired but has been protected by not being publicly named. Two of hisbosses have since been fired, Nicholson said. "It's an emergency at the VA, and it should be an emergency in our society,"he said. Rep. Tom Davis, the Virginia Republican who heads the committee, said theincident had prompted him to weigh changes to a law called the FederalInformation Security Management Act of 2002, which outlines proceduresfederal agencies must undertake in order to protect their data and systems. That law requires agencies to notify law enforcement and internal inspectorsgeneral when a breach occurs, but it does not require notification ofpotential victims or the public. It must be updated to include penalties,incentives and "proactive notification requirements," Davis said, addingthat he is "troubled as the number and scope of losses continues to expand." Nicholson said he and investigators on the theft case "remain hopeful thatthis was a common, random theft and that no use will be made of this data.However, we certainly cannot count on that." He assured the politicians thatevery person whose information has been compromised has been notified, andthe VA has established call centers and a dedicated Web site to respond to inquiries. But the specter of identity theft prompted stern words from some of thecommittee members. "My hope, Mr. Secretary is...that in case there isidentity theft taking place, you will do everything you can to protect ourveterans financially and legally and you will come before the Congress to dothat," said Rep. Bernard Sanders, a Vermont Independent. With or without new legislative action, Walker urged all agencies to limitcollection of and access to personal information; to curb the amount of timesuch records are retained; and to consider using encryption and othertechnological controls, particularly when data is stored on mobile devices. Read the entire article Sacbee - The Sacramento Bee Stolen laptop of governor's aide hunted By Christina Jewett -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, December 23, 2004 It wasn't just anyone's laptop. Burglars who targeted a midtown house in August made off with the Dell laptop belonging to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's press secretary, leaving police on the hunt for her computer and the culprits. Four months later, no one has been arrested for the burglary, although court documents point to prime suspects... ..."I was horrified to think that any of my information could have been used to imperil the safety of those public officials and personalities," she [Margarita Thompson] wrote in an e-mail that was read in court. ... political observers caution that the laptop may contain information that puts the governor in a compromising position. ...The theft of the laptop reveals the pitfalls of packing reams of information in small packages, said Henry Brady, a UC Berkeley political science professor. He said a floppy disk was discovered in June 2002 with a strategy presentation Karl Rove used to advise President Bush's campaign. In 2000, the laptop of Qualcomm Inc. CEO Irwin Jacobs was pilfered from a hotel meeting room. It contained five years' worth of spreadsheets, e-mails and files. "Maybe this is an opportunity for the governor to stand up and say 'this could happen to anybody,' " said Berkeley political science professor Steven Weber... Read the entire article Laptop with HP employee data stolen By Joris Evers Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: March 22, 2006, 5:41 PM PST A laptop with information on almost 200,000 current and formerHewlett-Packard employees was stolen last week, putting them at risk ofidentity fraud. The stolen computer belongs to Fidelity Investments, which provides servicesto HP, a representative for the Palo Alto, Calif., technology giant saidWednesday. The laptop was being used by several Fidelity employees in anoff-site location, said Anne Crowley, a spokeswoman for Fidelity, which isbased in Boston. The portable PC contains information on 196,000 current and former HPemployees, Crowley said. The data includes names, addresses, Social Securitynumbers, dates of birth and other employment-related information, but not the personal identification numbers required to log on to Fidelity services, she said. The HP incident is the latest in a string of data security breaches. In thelast 13 months, more than 53 million personal records have been exposed in dozens of incidents, according to information compiled by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Last month, McAfee reported that an external auditor lost aCD with information on thousands of current and former employees. Fidelity has reported the theft to law enforcement agencies and the matteris under investigation, Crowley said. "They told us that there have beenseveral laptop thefts...and that their experience has been that these appearto be largely property-focused, rather than people seeking data or identity information," she said. There is no evidence that the information has been misused, Crowley said.Furthermore, the information requires a special application, which expired aday or so after the laptop was stolen, she said. "The data would bedifficult to interpret and generally difficult to read or use." Identity theft continues to plague consumers, topping the list of fraudcomplaints reported to the Federal Trade Commission last year. Consumersfiled more than 255,000 identity theft reports to the FTC in 2005,accounting for more than a third of all complaints, the agency said in January. UCLA laptop theft exposes ID info By David Becker Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: June 10, 2004, 4:37 PM PDT Representatives of the University of California, Los Angeles, are warning145,000 blood donors they could be at risk for identity theft due to astolen university laptop. UCLA's Blood and Platelet Center included the advisory in a letter sent lastweek to all who donated blood through the organization. Thieves broke into a locked van last November and grabbed a laptop with adatabase that includes names, birth dates and Social Security numbers forall blood donors, according to a university statement. The database did notinclude medical information other than blood type, according to thestatement, and university officials did not recognize the significance ofthe loss and the potential for identity theft until the matter came up in asecurity audit last month. "We deeply regret any inconvenience this incident may cause our blood donors," Dr. Priscilla I. Figueroa, director of the university's Division ofTransfusion Medicine, said in the statement. "We hope and trust that theywill continue participating in our blood drives and making these life saving donations." The database was password-protected but not encrypted, according to thestatement, which said the university was reviewing data security policies inlight of the incident. Los Angeles police are investigating the theft, according to the university,and there is no evidence yet that information in the database has beenretrieved or misused. University representatives said in a follow-up statement that a secondlaptop was stolen two weeks ago from the financial office of theUniversity's health care division, putting personal information for an additional 62,000 patients at risk. Widespread use of laptops has presented an increasing risk for securitytheft, with lost or stolen devices potentially exposing data ranging from FBI secrets to tax records in recent years. Read the entire article USA Today Laptops, tech toys drive rise in dorm room thievery Wary students turn to footlockers, safes by Bruce Horovitz | Sep 13 '04 College dorm rooms used to be places for hanging out. But in a world of laptops and other pricey digital doodads, they're becoming places to loot. The result: the emergence of a multimillion-dollar industry for dorm room security. Students can cart $3,000 or more in gear to campus just by toting their laptop computers, digital cameras, MP3 players, PDAs and DVD players. To keep these high-tech toys from being heisted, some students are lugging steel-fortified footlockers to campus or tucking laptops into digital safes. Dorm officials are ordering lockable student desks and installing the keyless room locks common in hotels. "Today's laptop is yesterday's bicycle," says Eddie Hull, president of the Association of College and University Housing Officers-International. Reported on-campus burglaries were a record 29,256 in 2002 -- the most recent year tracked by the U.S. Department of Education. At Yale, laptop theft jumped 37% last year vs. 2002. At Texas A&M, 15 laptops were stolen from campus buildings during 2003 spring semester alone. And Stanford saw a rash of laptop thefts last year... Associated Press Stolen Computers Have Wells Fargo Data 11.02.2004, 10:11 AM Thousands of Wells Fargo & Co. mortgage and student-loan customers may be at risk for identity theft after four computers were stolen last month from a vendor that prints loan statements. The computers were taken from the Atlanta office of Regulus Integrated Solutions LLC contained customer names, addresses, and social security and account numbers. No passwords or personal-identification numbers were in the database. "There is no indication that the stolen information has been misused," Wells Fargo spokeswoman Janis Smith said. Regulus, which also services other big banks, didn't return phone calls seeking comment. The bank declined to say how many people may be affected. But Wells Fargo, a $422 billion financial-services company, has about 4.9 million mortgage customers and serves about 890,000 customers through its education-finance division. It marks the third time in about a year computers have been stolen containing personal data of Wells Fargo customers... Read the entire article Between the Lines Stolen Laptops -Posted by Dave.Rosenberg 10/26/2004 @ 6:06 am (PDT) According to the FBI, laptop theft is the second most prevalent computer crime, with less than 2 percent of stolen laptops recovered. Over 1.5 million laptops are expected to be reported stolen in 2004, an increase of over 50 percent from last year. As identity theft turns out to be even worse than expected, and with companies such as Wells Fargo suffering multiple stolen laptops in the last year, some new companies are emerging to help protect sensitive corporate data... Read the entire article Information Week EXCLUSIVE: Laptop Theft Puts GMAC Customers' Data At Risk Personal data, including Social Security numbers, for about 200,000 GMAC Financial Services customers may have been compromised due to the theft of two laptop computers from an employee's car. By Paul McDougall | March 25, 2004 A division of GMAC Financial Services has been quietly informing about 200,000 of its customers that their personal data may have been compromised due to the theft of two laptop computers from an employee's car at a regional office near Atlanta... ...the stolen laptops contained customers' names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, credit scores, marital status, and gender... ...The stolen laptops were password-protected but not encrypted, he says. The spokesman says the data was being used for a marketing research project. He declined to say if any employees were disciplined as a result of the theft, which police have not solved. ...safeguards are often an afterthought at many businesses. "There are not a lot of companies that have good procedures for protecting data, it's common for workers to take sensitive data home on an unprotected laptop," Gartner security analyst Avivah Litan says. ...The FTC estimates that identity theft cost businesses $33 billion in 2002 Read the entire article USA TODAY Fliers lose laptops at airport checkpoints By Chris Woodyard | 02/19/2002 Stricter airport security is producing an unwelcome byproduct: a rash of lost laptop computers. Lost-and-found counters report being flooded with jewelry, keys, cell phones and especially laptops left behind at checkpoints since enhanced screening went into effect after Sept. 11... ...The problem stems from new procedures that require passengers to remove their laptops from their cases and put them through X-ray machines. They forget to pick them up or grab a stranger's laptop by mistake... ..It's even worse for fliers who are singled out for magnetic wand searches and may be separated from their valuables on the X-ray belt for minutes... "I hear horror stories every day," says Kevin Iwamoto, travel manager for Hewlett-Packard, who has had to deal with employees who have reported laptops stolen at checkpoints... Read the entire article Access Control and Security The hidden cost of PC theft by David N. Herbig | Jun 01 '00 ...Theft by those inside the organization - as well as the more highly publicized incidents at airports, taxis, and hotels - are one part of the mix. "Machine drift," or the propensity of untracked PCs to silently disappear, is another. Leasing company records show that it is not uncommon for 10-20 percent of leased machines to be missing after a two-year lease term. While the statistics on reported thefts are shocking enough, these unreported losses simply add to the distressing situation facing many organizations today - the unmentionable problem of PC theft. ...According to Safeware Insurance, the most frequently cited supplier of statistics on PC theft, more than 303,000 laptops and 109,000 desktops were stolen in 1998, representing a loss of over $1 billion. In addition, the unrecoverable costs of lost user productivity, replacing missing hardware and data, and the administrative time spent to protect networks from the exposure caused by the missing machine can exceed the value of the lost hardware. Laptops are sometimes stolen for the information they contain. Potentially damaging documents, valuable data, passwords, credit card information and digital certificates can cause significant loss to the unlucky victim. As the trend to laptop machines continues, this problem can be expected to grow. | |
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