Health Information Management

Thief steals laptop containing Fidelity Investments customer data

HIPAA Weekly Advisor, March 27, 2006

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A thief stole a laptop computer containing information about 196,000 Fidelity Investments customers, including their Social Security numbers, reports The Boston Globe.

The company released few details about the theft, but The Globe indicated that the thief may have stolen the computer when an employee brought it to a meeting. Fidelity will notify affected customers and offer free credit monitoring services.

The breach joins a rash of recent privacy- and security-related lapses, including a recent case in which a thief stole unencrypted backup tapes containing PHI from the van of an Oregon-based Providence Health System employee.

'You would be shocked how much internal data is left on employee computers," Richard M. Smith, principal of Boston security consulting firm Boston Software Forensics, told The Globe. 'It's much more common than companies know."

Click here to read The Globe article.



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