Thousands of Vermont State College staff and students have been informed that their social security and credit card numbers were on a laptop computer stolen from the car of a college employee. It is just the latest in a series of laptop thefts and one of three such incidents reported by InfoWatch this week.
The laptop, containing the private details of 14,000 students and staff at Vermont State College, was stolen from a car on Feb. 28. The social security and credit card numbers of those affected are now in the hands of the criminal.
System administrators at the college said that they took immediate steps to block network access from the stolen laptop. In other words, remote access to even greater volumes of data at the college using the stolen computer was impossible. However, despite all the announcements and measures, those affected by the leak are far from happy, especially because the college took three weeks to inform them of the theft. The angry victims now want to know what exactly will be done to prevent any cases of identity theft.
The college administrators have insisted that the threat of identity theft is minimal, but nonetheless urged the 14,000 current students, teachers and staff to be vigilant about their bank and credit card accounts. There is even the possibility that the stolen laptop may have contained information on people associated with the college system from as long ago as 2000. The college administrators said there was no sign of the information on the laptop having been used illegally. They also said the delay in notifying those affected was due to the fact that they wanted to find out exactly what information had been on the stolen computer.
The laptop was stolen from an unidentified information technology officer's car while it was parked on a Montreal street. The woman reportedly put her laptop under her seat and locked the car. However, she left a pair of skis in the back. The thieves broke a window, and took the skis, the laptop and other items of value. The woman immediately contacted the college to warn them of what had happened and notified the police of the theft.
This is not the first time that the problem of confidential data security has arisen at Vermont State College. Last October a student at the technical college found his social security number on the Internet. It later turned out that the college had accidentally published the social security numbers of virtually all its students.
“Every week we comment on two or three serious private data leaks linked to the theft of laptops. More often than not, the laptops are stolen from locked cars, and no tricks, like hiding them under the seat, actually help. Criminals often watch out for victims with laptops, because sooner or later they leave them unattended in a car or some other place," say Denis Zenkin, marketing director at InfoWatch.
“There is only one real solution: organizations should encrypt all sensitive data on any portable devices belonging to them. Otherwise, data leaks will occur with annoying regularity."
Source: Times Argus
