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Howard Rice Data on Stolen Laptop
From: Dissent <Dissent () pogowasright org>
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 02:44:17 -0400
As many as 500 current and former employees of San Francisco's Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin may be at risk of identity theft after a laptop computer containing confidential employee pension plan information was stolen from an auditor. The firm sent a notice to current and former partners, associates and staff in mid-August alerting them of the security breach. "Given the circumstances of the theft, we think it is highly unlikely that the laptop was purloined because the thief knew that Howard, Rice employee names and Social Security numbers were resident on the computer," the letter stated. "Nonetheless, we want to treat this potential information breach with utmost caution." California law requires all businesses to notify customers and employees if there is a danger that their personal data might have been compromised. The laptop, owned by an employee of accounting firm Morris, Davis & Chan in Oakland, contained thousands of documents, including three spreadsheets with the name and Social Security number of all active and terminated Howard, Rice employees with a remaining balance in the firm's pension plans, as well as 401(k) and profit-sharing account information. The computer was taken from the trunk of the auditor's car, parked in a public lot. Howard, Rice executive director Michelle Johnson said the firm sent the notice to everyone as soon as the firm found out about the theft and has offered free credit reporting for anyone whose information had been on the stolen computer. "This wasn't a theft of our property. All we know is that the computer was stolen, and so far we are not aware of anybody having their information compromised," Johnson said. On Aug. 28, the firm sent an update saying that the information on the computer had not been encrypted but had been password protected. [...] http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1158311123646 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.12.4/449 - Release Date: 9/15/2006 _______________________________________________ Dataloss Mailing List (dataloss () attrition org) http://attrition.org/dataloss Tracking more than 146 million compromised records in 349 incidents over 6 years.
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