FTC Loses Laptops - Compromises Information of Suspected Fraudsters

The Federal Trade Commission is reporting that one of their attorneys lost two laptops - stolen from a car - which contained sensitive information on people being targeted for investigation.

As reported from the Associated Press:

The car theft occurred about 10 days ago and managers were immediately notified.

Many of the people whose data were compromised were being investigated for possible fraud and identity theft, said Joel Winston, associate director of the FTC's Division of Privacy and Identity Theft Protection.

Here is the report from the AP, courtesy of Fox News.

There are some interesting resources from Fox on how to protect yourself from becoming a victim from what some consider is rapidly becoming an epidemic.

Fox's Identity Theft Center

Fox's Cyber Security Center

Fox's Crime Center

The AP article also lists a lot of the recent data breaches, we seem to see (far too often). Here is another resource from the Privacy Rights Organization on the almost weekly breaches. You can view their chronology, here.

The real "kicker" for me is that the FTC now plans to provide these suspected "fraudsters" with identity theft monitoring!

Here is a previous post, I wrote after the Veteran's Administration compromised 26.5 million veterans by losing a laptop:

The VA Data Breach is a Symptom of a Bigger Problem