Laptop with Data on 600,000 People Stolen

Posted on January 21st, 2008 webmaster No comments          Print

Here’s another one…

A laptop containing personal information on about 600,000 people was stolen from an officer in the Royal Navy, the U.K.’s Ministry of Defense said on Friday.

The laptop contained information about new and potential recruits to the Royal Marines, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, and was stolen in Birmingham last week, the ministry said.

The stolen data includes passport details, national insurance numbers, family details and doctors’ addresses for people who submitted an application to the forces, the ministry said. The laptop also contained bank details for at least 3,500 people.

They didn’t say whether the data was encrypted.

Also see this post about encrypting data with TrueCrypt (free open-source encryption software).

Backup Tape Lost – 650,000 Customers Affected

Posted on January 20th, 2008 webmaster No comments          Print

A backup tape containing personal information of 650,000 customers of J.C. Penney and about 100 other retailers went missing. Social Security numbers of 150,000 customers are stored on the tape. The missing backup tape was not encrypted…

The information was on a backup computer tape that was discovered missing last October. It was being stored at a warehouse run by Iron Mountain Inc., a data storage company, and was never checked out but can’t be found either, said Richard C. Jones, a spokesman for GE Money, part of General Electric Capital Corp.

Jones said there was “no indication of theft or anything of that sort,” and no evidence of fraudulent activity on the accounts involved.

Click here for the full article…

Save Windows XP!

Posted on January 14th, 2008 webmaster No comments          Print

As you may have already heard, Microsoft is planning to stop selling Windows XP to OEMs on June 30, 2008, forcing users to switch to Windows Vista. But there are still many users out there who prefer XP over Vista. If you’re one of these people, please click here to sign InfoWorld’s petition to keep Windows XP available indefinitely.

Here’s the link to InfoWorld’s full article on this: Why XP must be saved