Stolen Laptops, Exposed Data and Identity Theft
According to the FBI, laptop theft is the second most common computer crime and less than 2 percent of those stolen laptops are ever recovered. Four in five (81%) of US firms have had at least one laptop stolen containing sensitive information according to a recent study.
Unfortunately the data that is on these laptops isn’t just corporate data about the inner working of the business who owned it, but the personal details about people like you and me. The data that has been exposed on these laptops over the last 2 years has been (and not limited to) full name, address, age, social security number, credit card number, photos, financial data, digital signatures, full bank accounts details and other personal details.
This data, if it falls into the wrong hands could be used to apply for credit cards or loans under false names by identity thieves.
So, how frequently does this happen?
A large number of the general public have heard about the big organizations losing sensitive information on the news such as the Hotels.com and the American war veterans incident. However, most incidents don’t ever make it to the news and people don’t realize how bad the problem is. Here is a list of the reported incidents in 2005 and 2006 where laptops were stolen with sensitive information on them.
| 2005 | ||
| Date | Location | Records |
| March 11, 2005 | Univ. of CA, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA) | 98,400 |
| March 12, 2005 | NV Dept. of Motor Vehicle | 8,900 |
| April 5, 2005 | MCI (Ashburn, VA) | 16,500 |
| April 8, 2005 |
San Jose Med. Group (San Jose, CA)
|
185,000 |
| April 15, 2005 | CA Dept. of Health Services | 21,600 |
| April 26, 2005 | Christus St. Joseph’s Hospital (Houston, TX) | 19,000 |
| April 29, 2005 | Oklahoma State University | 37,000 |
| May 4, 2005 | CO. Health Dept. | 1,600 (families) |
| May 7, 2005 | Dept. of Justice (Washington, D.C.) | 80,000 |
| May 27, 2005 | Cleveland State Univ. (Cleveland, OH). | 44,420 |
| June 17, 2005 | Kent State Univ. | 1,400 |
| June 22, 2005 | Eastman Kodak | 5,800 |
| June 29, 2005 | Bank of America | 18,000 |
| June 30, 2005 | Ohio State Univ. Med. Ctr. | 15,000 |
| Aug. 27, 2005 | Univ. of Florida, Health Sciences. Center/ChartOne | 3,851 |
| Aug. 30, 2005 | J.P. Morgan, Dallas | Unknown |
| Sept. 10, 2005 | Kent State Univ. | 100,000 |
| Sept. 17, 2005 | North Fork Bank, NY | 9,000 |
| Sept. 23, 2005 | Bank of America | Not Disclosed |
| Nov. 1, 2005 | Univ. of Tenn. Medical Center | 3,800 |
| Nov. 5, 2005 | Safeway, Hawaii | 1,400 |
| Dec. 1, 2005 | Firstrust Bank | 100,000 |
| Dec. 6, 2005 | WA Employment Security Dept. | 530 |
| Late Dec. | Ameriprise | Unknown |
| 2005 (exact date unknown) | Dept. of Veterans Affairs (Washington, D.C.) |
66 |
| Total records compromised when laptops were stolen in 2005: | 975,671 | |
| 2006 | ||
| Jan. 24, 2006 | Univ. of WA Medical Center | 1,600 |
| Feb. 13, 2006 | Ernst & Young (UK) | 38,000 |
| Feb. 17, 2006 | Mount St. Mary’s Hospital (Lewiston, NY) | 17,000 |
| Mar. 1, 2006 | Medco Health Solutions (Columbus, OH) | 4,600 |
| Mar. 3, 2006 | Metropolitan State College (Denver, CO) | 93,000 |
| Mar. 8, 2006 | Verizon Communications (New York, NY) | Alot |
| Mar. 15, 2006 | Ernst & Young (UK) | Unknown |
| Mar. 23, 2006 | Fidelity Investments (Boston, MA) | 196,000 |
| Mar. 24, 2006 | Vermont State Colleges (VT) | 14,000 |
| April 26, 2006 | Aetna — Health Insurance (Hartford, CT) | 38,000 |
| May 12, 2006 | Mercantile Potomac Bank (Gaithersburg, MD) | 48,000 |
| May 22, 2006 | Dept. of Veterans Affairs | 28,600,000 |
| May 23, 2006 | M&T Bank (Buffalo, NY) | Unknown |
| May 30, 2006 | Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corp. (Round Rock, TX) | 1,700,000 |
| June 1, 2006 | Ernst & Young (UK) (Hotels.com Incident) | 243,000 |
| June 2, 2006 | Buckeye Community Health Plan (Columbus, OH) | 72,000 |
| June 2, 2006 | Ahold USA (Landover, MD) (Parent company of Stop & Shop, Giant stores and Tops stores) |
Unknown |
| June 2, 2006 | YMCA (Providence, RI) | 65,000 |
| June 5, 2006 | Internal Revenue Service (Washington, DC) | 291 |
| June 13, 2006 | Minn. State Auditor (St. Paul, MN) | 493 |
| June 16, 2006 | Union Pacific (Omaha, NE) | 30,000 |
| June 16, 2006 | ING (Miami, FL) | 8,500 |
| June 17, 2006 | ING (Washington, D.C.) | 13,000 |
| June 20, 2006 | Equifax (Atlanta, GA) | 2,500 |
| June 21, 2006 | Cape Fear Valley Health System (Fayetteville, NC) | 24,350 |
| June 22, 2006 | Federal Trade Commission (FTC) (Washington, D.C.) | 110 |
| July 1, 2006 | American Red Cross, Farmers Branch (Dallas, TX) | Unknown |
| July 7, 2006 | Nat’l Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) (Boca Raton, FL) |
73 |
| July 14, 2006 | University of Iowa (Davenport, IA) | 280 |
| July 14, 2006 | California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) | 3,020 |
| July 17, 2006 | Vassar Brothers Medical Center (Poughkeepsie, NY) | 257,800 |
| July 18, 2006 | U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (Wellington, KS) | 350 |
| July 25, 2006 | Armstrong World Industries (Lancaster Co., PA) | 12,000 |
| July 25, 2006 | Belhaven College (Jackson, MS) | Unknown |
| July 25, 2006 | Old Mutual Capital Inc., subsidiary of United Kingdom-based financial services firm Old Mutual PLC | 6,500 |
| July 26, 2006 | U.S. Navy recruitment offices (Trenton, NJ, and Jersey City, NJ) | 31,000 |
| July 26, 2006 | West Virginia Div. of Rehabilitation Services (Beckley, WV) |
Unknown |
| July 27, 2006 | Kaiser Permanente Northern Calif. Office (Oakland, CA) |
160,000 |
| July 27, 2006 | Los Angeles County (Los Angeles, CA) | Unknown |
| July 28, 2006 | Matrix Bancorp Inc. (Denver, CO) | Unknown |
| Aug. 4, 2006 | Toyota plant (San Antonio, TX) | 1,500 |
| Aug. 4, 2006 | PSA HealthCare (Norcross, GA) | 51,000 |
| Aug. 15, 2006 | U.S. Dept. of Transportation (Orlando, FL) | Unknown |
| Aug. 16, 2006 | Chevron (San Ramon, CA) | 59,000 |
| Aug. 17, 2006 | Williams-Sonoma (San Francisco, CA) | 1,200 |
| Total records compromised when laptops were stolen in 2006: | 31,796,167 | |
| Total records compromised from laptops from 2005-2006: | 32,771,838 | |
What makes this data so scary is that my country, Australia – which is by no means a small country, has a total population of 20,606,422 according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics which means that if these figures applied in Australia, everyone in Australia plus another 50% would have had their personal information compromised.
In America there are proposals for new laws to which requires organizations to inform people in writing (or email) when their data has been exposed. However, this is still not good enough. Some people never recover from identity theft or it takes years for those who do. There needs to be harsh new penalties for organizations that are careless with their customer’s data.
Dr Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Poneman Institute which sponsored the recent survey mentioned at the start of this article said:
“Corporations are clearly struggling with the challenges of identifying and protecting sensitive data, as well as developing successful strategies for securing confidential information stored among the myriad devices that make up today’s data networks”.
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Dear Tech Advisors,
First, a little about me. I am a 58-year old
who still fears computers & considers himself
fairly computer illiterate. However, I can
follow easy instructions.
I have a basic question.
Some years ago I was given a Gateway Solo Model
No. 2250 with Windows 98 SE on it.
It has been a good word processing & basic internet workhorse.
Would it be worthwhile to update it to an OS such as Windows XP, so I can get a DSL line?
If I upgrade & go DSL, does this mean my computer speed increases?
I want to sell items on E-Bay & have been told I
definitely need a high speed connection to do this.
Should I play around with upgrading this computer or get something new?
I’m also tired of dealing with Microsoft
computer errors, etc. & have been thinking of
switching to a Mac, but they are so much more
costly than most PC’s – unless someone goes the
wholesale or resale route & I don’t think I am
knowledgeable enough for that – especially, since I want all my photos & writing entries transferred from my Gateway Solo to whichever new computer I get. I figure if I buy my new
computer at a place like Best Buy, with its
Geek Squad, they can do these things for me.
Can you give me the advice I need?
Thank you in advance for your reply.
Yours peacefully,
Bobby “the computer illiterate” Frauenglas
Computers are so cheap now days I highly recommend you buy a new one. The price of the new computer would only be a little bit more to make that old computer half reasonable to use.
As for Geeksquad, avoid those big names like the plague, they’ll rip you off. Talk to a local tech. If you want to leave your phone number and town/state, I can send this onto a local tech who will look after you.