Stolen PCs spur ID theft worries at Stanford, U. of SC, AT&T

In a wave of apparently unrelated PC thefts, workers at Stanford University, the University of South Carolina (USC), and AT&T have been warned by their respective employers that their personal data might have been compromised.

A laptop stolen from Stanford contained the personnel records of 72,000 current and past employees, all hired before September of 2007, according to information posted on Stanford's Web site.

"I'm extremely disappointed to let you know that a Stanford laptop, which contained confidential personnel information, was recently stolen. The matter has been reported to law enforcement," said Randy Livingston, the university's VP for business affairs and CFO, in a letter sent out on June 6 to the "Stanford Community."

The missing Stanford laptop contained information such as social security number, salary, birth date, home address, work and home phone numbers, business title, office location, Stanford ID card number, and Stanford employee number, says a Q&A on the Stanford site.

However, the data on the laptop did not include driver's license numbers or financial information such as credit card and bank account numbers.

As students at USC have been notified, the PC stolen at USC -- a desktop model belonging to Deputy Dean Scott Koerwer -- disappeared along with several other items over Memorial Day Weekend from an office in the Moore School of Business.

The purloined desktop PC contained undisclosed types of personal information on 130 faculty and staff as well as on some 7,000 students who took courses at the school over the last academic year.

In a letter dated June 6, Koerwer suggested some steps that those affected might take to protect themselves from identity theft.

AT&T has not disclosed the number of employees impacted by the loss of a laptop from a vehicle during May.

"[But] the measures and precautions we put in place to protect the security of company-owned property and our employees' personal information were not followed," AT&T admitted, in a letter to workers.

The AT&T laptop -- which contained names, Social Security numbers, and salary information on management and other staff -- reportedly had no encryption or other security protection in place beyond a password lock.