There are many reasons why a person should consider signing up with LifeLock identity theft protection service to protect their identity from the ever steadily growing crime of identity theft. These days, it is not a question of “if” but more so “when.” Many measures can and should be taken to protect your personal identity from being stolen, but will they alert you if someone has gained access to your personal data. The following story, taken from the Star Tribune, involves over 80,000 people who might have done all they possibly could to protect their own credit card information and social security number from being stolen, and yet…

Thousands of people who have a connection to the University of North Dakota were involved in a data breach that took place September 26th when a laptop belonging to their Alumni Association’s primary software vendor, was stolen from an automobile.

The laptop did contain private information, including credit card and social security numbers belonging to the universities alumni, donors and other individuals (not identified in the story).

It is being reported that the information involved is protected by three layers of security controls and the data is encrypted. They are also quoted as having said: “There is no evidence suggesting the information on this computer has been used in any way.”

The reported number affected is more than 84,000 people, according to the Grand Forks Herald, and the majority of those are alumni. All affected are being sent a letter, if they have contact information on file with the University association.

The name of the vendor and the location of the theft have not been disclosed to the public.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 12:29 pm and is filed under LifeLock. 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.