Pfizer Laptops Stolen From Locked Car

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privacy-breach.jpgThe drugmaker is quickly coming to resemble The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. Two months ago, Pfizer suffered an enormous embarassment after revealing that personal data, including social security numbers, belonging to 17,000 former and current employees was compromised after unauthorized file sharing software was used by an employee’s spouse on a laptop.

Now, Pfizer is ‘fessing up to another incident. This time, two Pfizer laptops were stolen from a locked car, The Day reports. The laptops, which disappeared May 31 in Boston, included the names, addresses, social security numbers and cell phone numbers of health-care professionals who “were providing or considering providing contract services for Pfizer,” according to a letter sent to Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal. And 950 people are affected.

“I am deeply disturbed and troubled by these continuing security problems with information that should be closely safeguarded,” Blumenthal told the paper. “This kind of information should be treated as if it was cash because it has the same value as cash to someone who might misuse it.”

In a letter dated July 20 but received just recently by Blumenthal’s office, Pfizer attorney Bernard Nash wrote that a management consulting company named Axia Ltd. had notified Pfizer on June 14 of the incident. Pfizer, which let six weeks pass before notifying 17,000 employees about a data breach in the earlier incident, let five weeks go by before publicly acknowledging the latest breach. But Pfizer tells the paper it wasn’t clear until June 19 that personal info had potentially been exposed.

Coincidentally, the second security breach occurred only one day after a letter was sent to Blumenthal about the first incident, the paper notes.

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  1. Honestly - It should be treated as more valuable than cash. The company can afford to lose money - it’s only money after all - but identity theft can ruin someone’s life for years. And who’s going to pay them back for that?

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