Boeing has warned that a thief has lifted a US
employee’s laptop containing the names, social security numbers and
other sensitive information of 161,000 current and former
employees.
The theft from the Seattle-headquarted company is the latest
identity theft threat to hit corporate US, which has seen major
companies fall victim to remote hackers and laptop thieves on
numerous occasions this year.
Earlier this year, a female employee at communications company
MCI had her laptop stolen from an unlocked car in her garage. That
PC contained sensitive information on thousands of employees.
Boeing said the laptop theft did not take place at a Boeing
building but did not say where it took place.
With identity theft on the internet now an increasing problem,
US legislators are considering tougher laws to force companies to
bolster security.
Some of the employee information on the Boeing laptop included
banking information and birth dates, admitted Boeing, although it
said it was not aware of any fraudulent incidents using the
information so far.
Boeing said it was contacting all current and former employees
affected by the theft and was enrolling them for free in fraud
protection and credit monitoring programmes.