Thursday, July 3, 2008

Google Employee Data Stolen

ZDNet today writes:

Google has confirmed that personal data of US employees hired prior to 2006 has been stolen in a recent burglary.

Records kept at Colt Express Outsourcing Services, an external company used by Google and other companies to handle human-resources functions, were stolen in a burglary on 26 May.

An undisclosed number of employees’ details and those of dependents, such as names, addresses, and social security numbers, were on the stolen computers.

Credit card numbers were reportedly not among the stolen data. ZDnet’s Brendon Chase adds that it is understood “that Colt did not employ encryption to protect the information.” According to ZDnet, Google has offered employees to pay for a one-year subscription to a credit report and identity theft monitoring service, something which Colt Express was not able to cover. In no relation to this particular incident, Google is not using the services by Colt Express these days... a decision made “long before this incident,” as Google says.

[Via Simon at Friendfeed.]

Google Employee Data Stol ... by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (5)

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