Three Laptops Stolen, Thousands of Records at Risk

Do you know where YOUR SSN is?

Published on July 28, 2006 By Zoomba In WinCustomize News

As a departure from the typical news about Google releasing their 2396th product, or Microsoft removing a feature from vista, today we bring you some news from the world of data security and privacy.

Yesterday, it was reported that two laptops were stolen from a U.S. Navy Recruiting station in New Jersey, and another from Armstrong World Industries Inc. Between the three laptops, personal data such as addresses, names for upwards of 43,000 individuals were lost. An estimated 16,000 of those records contained Social Security numbers. This continues the trend started earlier in the year when thousands of veterans' records were lost when a laptop was stolen from an employee who brought the data home to work on it.

Read on in the linked ComputerWorld article.

Comments

NightTrainthedark

on Jul 28, 2006

Theory...

Since the information was so important, you would think special precautions and attention are given to the laptops. In other words they are valuable. If someone knows the passwords, they are extremely valuable. I won't be surprised to find out that they were sold and not stolen.

Keikonium

on Jul 28, 2006

They should hold all the records in a master computer in a database. Then allow access to that database via a system of passwords and identification instead of letting the information just sit on a laptop. That would prevent situations like this from happening. Even if the laptops are recovered, I'm sure the data thats actually worth anything would be backed up by the theif.

Well, I hope nothing to bad happens, but like Night Train said, special precautions should have been taken to ensure the laptops are safe

SirSmiley

on Jul 28, 2006

You've got to wonder whether any of the policy makers actually listen to their tech staff. Then again common sense and bureaucracy seem to be lacking.

Zoomba

on Jul 28, 2006

At the very least, these places should be encrypting data at rest. It's not perfect, but at least it keeps casual laptop thieves from realizing what they have in their hands. One of the projects I was on at my previous employer was to get all user data on every desktop and laptop encrypted so if the computer or disk was stolen, it would at least be more difficult to steal the data. Unfortunately, it seems most places are years away from being able to do that.

Phoon

on Jul 28, 2006

There are moderate to low cost hard drive encryption solutions that are quite effective. All laptops hard drives in sensitive organizations should be encrypted... period.

MarkSnyder61

on Jul 28, 2006

As an MCSE, I can tell you there most certainly are ways to secure data and transmissions, but it's a matter of hiring the pros to implement them. These standards are not in place simply because of cost. There's no excuse for this. I am also a Veteran and I am outraged at the possibility that my identity may have been compromised because the officials just wouldn't hire the right people to safeguard our most valuable data. It just really pisses me off!

Jafo

on Jul 28, 2006

They should be die-bombed like cash movements. If accessed by the wrong people a charge is set off pickling the harddrive.

Adam Michael

on Jul 28, 2006

Hmm. Maybe laptops are being allowed too much access. They aren't very safe if you follow their history.

Dark-Star

on Jul 29, 2006

Hey! Who took my laptop!?!

scorpNZ

on Jul 29, 2006

Unbelievable the incompetance of some people,the navy laptops were obviously not locked away and as for the moron leaving a laptop in a car ya gotta wonder where the brains at,if the info is used it will cause no end of problems,if your familiar with articles on actual data theft being used you know that repairing the damage will take years

GAIAStevef

on Jul 29, 2006

Just like the Sarbanes-Oxley act was passed to hold companies responsible for their accounting practices, let's make them accountable for this lack of common sense as well.

I for one would love to see legislature passed to hold the companies that lost the data personally & financially responsible for any monetary loss resulting from the data thefts. Let's see how much it hurts them when they have to report to their shareholders that they will have to take a hit to their projected numbers for the quarter because they have to pay for several thousand Joe Public's financial losses do to identity thefts when they couldn't be bothered to take proper safety measures.

Phoon

on Jul 29, 2006

I will kind of expand on what I said earlier in the hopes that someone with decision making authority can take preventive measures in the future.

Encryption Plus Hard Disk from PC Guardian Technologies offers military-grade encryption for sensitive information. Specifically, it is certified to Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4. It completely encrypts every disk sector of a laptop or desktop running Windows NT4/2000/XP or Windows Server 2003. The system will not even boot until you enter a password. Data is transparently decrypted when read from disk and re-encrypted when written. An Administrator Program permits central management.

You have to purchase a minimum 50 user license at typical retail of $133 per.
That amounts to $6650.00. That is PEANUTS for a well established business or organizations like the US Navy.

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