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Ameriprise Loses Laptop Too: 230,000 IDs
John Stith
Staff Writer
2006-01-31
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Ameriprise Financial, a spinoff from American Express, lost a laptop computer with upwards of 230,000 customers' and advisors personal information on it. 230,000 names were compromised because a laptop computer was stolen from an employee's parked car. This sounds like déjà vu all over again. Did I mention the info was unencrypted?
 | | Ameriprise Laptop in the Wrong Hands |  |
A rant seems appropriate but let's go over some numbers first. 70,000 of that 230,000 were current or formal financial advisors. Their names and social security numbers were stored on this computer, unencrypted. Then the rest were customer whose names and internal account numbers. That totaled around 158,000. Their information was unencrypted. This 230,000 was a small portion of their customer base though, looking at roughly 2.8 million customers
Once again, the industry doesn't take the problem seriously. The New York Times (NYT) quoted to Ameriprise spokesman Andrew MacMillan, who said, "any data being used or discovered is very low."
He went on to say, "This information should not have been removed from the corporate office without the security measures in place. This individual violated a few written company policies."
Let's be realistic. There isn't that much of a problem with doing what this employee did. If there were, then it wouldn't be happening nearly as often as it does as this and other institutions.
More than a few identity fraud breaches occurred because someone left a laptop in a car and it got stolen. The reality is, cars get broken into. Computers get stolen from said cars. It's not a big leap. Ameriprise and these other institutions should be held accountable not only for creating an environment in which employees can lug all this information home with them but also that they can do it with minimal security, such as a password. This information should have double passwords, bioscans AND high end encryption just to get access.
Last year was a dismal year for identity fraud and this year isn't shaping up to be a good one. The problem with many of these though is the carelessness with which these institutions and their employees treat their customers. One might suggest going to another institution but it would moot because they all exhibit the same lackadaisical behavior regarding financial records.
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About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
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