[IP] Red Cross laptop with [blood] donor information stolen
Begin forwarded message:
From: Alice Kehoe <akehoe@xxxxxxx>
Date: July 1, 2006 3:47:28 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: brendan@xxxxxxx, derry@xxxxxxx, authors@xxxxxxx
Subject: Red Cross laptop with [blood] donor information stolen
Dave - for IP, if you wish ...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13657607/
Red Cross laptop with donor information stolen
Social Security numbers on computer, but officials say data is encrypted
The Associated Press
Updated: 3:01 p.m. ET July 1, 2006
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DALLAS - A laptop containing personal information from thousands of
blood donors — including Social Security numbers and medical
information — was stolen from a local office of the American Red
Cross, but officials said the information was encrypted.
The data included matching names and birth dates of donors from Texas
and Oklahoma, as well as donors’ sexual and disease histories.
“We haven’t viewed this as a security breach at this point,” Darren
Irby, spokesman for the national American Red Cross office, told The
Dallas Morning News for its Saturday editions.
The laptop was one of three stolen from a locked closet in the
Farmers Branch office of the American Red Cross in May, but the two
others did not contain the personal information. There was no sign of
forced entry, said Red Cross spokeswoman Audrey Lundy.
Local officials alerted police and national Red Cross offices, Lundy
said. Donors were not notified about the missing information, and the
Red Cross had no legal obligation to do so.
The laptops disappeared on two separate occasions in May, according
to police reports. They could have been gone as long as a week before
being reported missing.
Gordon Bass, acting chief information security officer for the
national Red Cross, said supervisors have their own user names and
passwords. Access is time-and-date based, so information can be
accessed only during blood drives or when new information is uploaded
to a central database.
The Farmers Branch Red Cross also lost a laptop with encrypted donor
information in June 2005, Lundy said, but she could provide no
details on circumstances of that incident or any follow-up
investigation.
Security in the Farmers Branch office was tightened after the most
recent disappearances, Lundy said.
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