This story is all over the Internet in which a past employee (he was fired) had his laptop stolen that contained the information of 382,000 current and former employees of Boeing. The data contained personal information such as names, home addresses, social security numbers, dates of birth, and home phone numbers, depending on which news item you read.

Is it just me, or does something really smell here? You see a Boeing laptop containing information on roughly 160,000 current and former employees was stolen in November 2005. Then, in April, a laptop containing information on 3,600 employees and retirees was stolen.

Hello! How many times does one company need its data stolen before its IT department wakes up? For the life of me I cannot understand why any one computer system should contain records of 382,000 folks. Was the employee whose laptop was stolen going to use all of these names for his Christmas card mailing list?

I just find this hard to believe. Though this last laptop was secured with a password, gee whiz! I wouldn’t feel safe knowing this. After all, there are a multitude of password hacks and cracks available on the Internet that any fool who can read is able to use.

Heh, Boeing! For $150k I’ll do a 1100 page report on how to secure a laptop with sensitive data. I think, just a guess, that it’s called a … oops, send the check first!

Tags: laptop, stolen, employees, data, boeing, retirees, missing laptop