Slim Risks, yet HCC Still Warns of Lost Data
Hillsborough Community College programmer’s laptop stolen from a hotel parking lot in Georgia rises identity theft concerns. All the private records the laptop used to contain on about 2,000 HCC employees has previously been deleted and the computer is password-protected, yet fears of someone with sophisticated software retrieving the data made HCC take action.
Spokeswoman Ashley Carl told Tampa Bay Online that the programmer had been working on a payroll project for a group of employees using their names, bank-routing numbers, retirement information and Social Security numbers but had subsequently deleted the data and also emptied the Trash bin.
The college also is looking into acquiring technology that will allow workers to remotely locate laptops and to encrypt computers or disks. In addition, it stressed to employees who use laptops to use extra caution when securing the devices.
HCC officials announced all their potentially affected employees of the threat and advised them to closely monitor their bank accounts. This was indeed a speedy and rather thorough reaction from HCC, especially since their determined to prevent future incidents by deploying and endpoint security solution along with enforcing other IT security policies.
