Fergie's Tech Blog

CPA Group Says Data on 330,000 Members Missing

Jaikumar Vijayan writes on ComputerWorld:

Adding to the lengthening list of organizations reporting data compromises, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) today [7 June 2006] confirmed that a computer hard drive containing the unencrypted names, addresses and Social Security numbers of nearly all of its 330,000 members has been missing since February.

The hard drive had been accidentally damaged by an AICPA employee and was sent out for repair to an external data-recovery service in violation of the AICPA's policies, said Joel Allegretti, a spokesman for the New York-based organization. It was on its way back to the AICPA via FedEx but failed to arrive. Allegretti did not say when exactly the drive went missing except to note that the package containing it was due back at the AICPA "toward the end of February."

It took the organization until March 31 to "re-create the drive" and determine what data it contained. The AICPA began notifying affected members of the potential compromise of their personal data on May 8 and has since completed the task, Allegretti said.

posted by Fergie @ 6/13/2006 08:43:00 PM