196,000 Hewlett-Packard Employees Hit By Data Breach After Fidelity Loses Laptop

[mandy]

Financial services companies appear to have it in for their technology customers with Fidelity Investments adding to a spate of laptop thefts.

A laptop lost by Fidelity this month has exposed 196,000 current and former HP employees, staff were told last night.

"This is to let you know that Fidelity Investments, record-keeper for the HP retirement plans, recently had a laptop computer stolen that contained personal information about you, including your name, address, social security number and compensation," employees learned via email...

full article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/22/...laptop_hp/

[mandy]

It's becoming a trend...  : : : :

40,000 BP workers exposed in Ernst & Young laptop loss

Like sands through the hourglass, these are The Days of Ernst & Young laptop loss. Yes, friends, The Register can confirm that BP has been added to the list of Ernst & Young customers whose personal data has been exposed after a laptop theft. BP joins Sun Microsystems, Cisco and IBM in this not so exclusive club.

Ernst & Young has sent out a letter to all 38,000 BP employees in the US, telling them that a laptop theft had exposed their names and social security numbers...

full article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/ey_bp_laptop/

[regic]

Update: Fidelity explains why it put 200,000 employee records on a laptop that was later lost:

"Fidelity indicates that the data was imported onto a laptop in order to support discussions for a meeting at HP, during which Fidelity demonstrated a new software product they believed would assist HP in addressing some administrative issues related to the HP retirement plans," HP told its staff yesterday. "It was not necessary for the discussions or the demonstration that the data be transmitted in this way, and HP was not informed ahead of time that this would occur. HP views this as a very serious problem."

full article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/24/...ty_laptop/

[jezebel]

The sheer stupidity of all the corporate IT directors who allow sensitive data to be placed on laptops  amazes me.  :

[mandy]

Ernst & Young is apparently seeking entry into the Guiness Book of World Records for Most Laptops Lost in one Year.  The boinktards are in charge at E&Y's IT department it would seem.  :

Ernst & Young's laptop loss unit continues to be one of the company's more productive divisions. We learn this week that the accounting firm lost a system containing data on 243,000 Hotels.com customers. Hotels.com joins the likes of Sun Microsystems, IBM, Cisco, BP and Nokia, which have all had their employees' data exposed by Ernst & Young, as revealed here in a series of exclusive stories...

Major media outlets have so far ignored the Ernst & Young laptop incidents...

full article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/01/...ls_laptop/