According to a Sacramento news website, Sutter Health workers will soon be receiving a letter that their personal data has been compromised. The social security numbers’ of approximately 6,000 personnel was saved to a laptop that was reported missing back in 2007. The laptop recently was turned in to a repair shop. Once technicians at the repair shop realized what the file contained, they returned the hard drive to Sutter Health. They also wrote a certified letter stating that they did not retain any of the information contained on the hard drive.

Those who currently or have ever worked for Sutter can contact the company for more information until their letters are received. It is being reported that 6,000 are affected. The company is recommending that those affected contact credit reporting agencies and place fraud alerts on their credit files to counteract any negative activity as a result of this data breach. There will also be free access to a id theft service at no cost, for one year.

Sutter is reportedly working to ensure that this will not happen in the future by encrypting and password protecting employee data. Also by only saving files to network drives vs. computer hard drives and by tracking the disposal of old computers.

Many are affected by this data breach, however, it is hoped that no one accessed and used the data involved. Although it is being reported that the repair shop has certified that the data involved was not retained, it is not yet being revealed whether the party responsible for turning the laptop in to this repair shop has accessed this data. Therefore, following the recommendations of Sutter Health is critical for those involved.

LifeLock identity theft services are also available to those affected for a discounted rate. View our banner offer for details.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Data Breach. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.