Fidelity Fumbles, Loses Laptop, HP Data

"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.

Fidelity has also set up a web site that "includes some immediate steps that you can take to protect yourself, as well as information about how to enroll for a 12-month period of credit monitoring at no cost to you and a Fidelity call center number in case you have additional questions."

"At this time, we are unaware of any misuse of the information contained in the software on the laptop," said Fidelity spokeswoman Anne Crowley. "The application was running on a temporary license from a third-party software vendor. The license has expired. Since the expiration of the license, the scrambled data would be difficult to interpret and generally unusable.

"We have taken steps to implement extra security processes requiring additional authentication for access to those HP accounts as well as other measures to prevent unauthorized use. We have also employed additional security controls above and beyond our already significant monitoring activity to identify if there is any unusual activity in these accounts. Further, we have reviewed activity in the HP accounts and have found no indication of unusual or suspicious activity."