The theft of two laptops containing private details from a Verizon office has left the telecom firm's employees open to identity theft. The company has stressed that the theft was a random act and poses no danger, though that may be wishful thinking.
Two laptop computers containing the private details of Verizon employees were stolen from one of the telecom company's offices in early March. The number of staff affected was not disclosed.
The company started notifying those affected on March 1, 2006. The letter states that the laptops were stolen in an act of "random theft" and the data was password-protected. However, the fact that the computers were stolen from one of the phone operator's offices suggests that the thief may have targeted the company deliberately. Verizon has offered two years of free credit monitoring services to all those affected.
Verizon has a track record of problems in the field of IT security. In August 2005 an unexplained computer glitch exposed millions of customer records for viewing by other customers. In early 2006 it was also reported that the cell phone records of the company's clients were among those being sold by third parties on the Internet.
“The theft of a laptop from a company office can hardly be described as random. The thief would have needed to at least know his way around the office and not arouse the suspicions of Verizon staff. And besides, in such big companies there is always some form of security guard service. I'm fairly sure that randomness played no part whatsoever in the incident. Only one thing remains unclear – why were the private details on the laptops not encrypted?" wonders Denis Zenkin, marketing director at InfoWatch.
Source: Consumeraffairs.com
