Comments on: Stolen Home Depot laptop exposes employee data

Laptop with names, addresses and Social Security numbers of employees is stolen from the car of a Home Depot regional manager.

[sanenazok]

won't say the files were encrypted...

if the files had been encrypted they would have jumped right on that. Instead we learn that the laptop was "password protected" meaning all one needs to do in order to get the data out is pull the drive and plug it into a running computer via something like a USB laptop HDD adapter.

Better yet, the password was the manager's name or the word "password."

[`WarpKat]

The Common User

Given the high level of stupidity for the User in a Suit when it comes to such things, I'm not surprised that this has happened, nor am I surprised that it is going to continue to happen and will become the sort of passing news that Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan are now making in the nightly tabloid shows.

Managers, or ANYONE for that matter, who have no inclination to protect their laptops or the data on them should not be given the opportunity to carry one - even if it doesn't have anything more than Solitaire on it.

I've said this before - common sense should be a course taught in kindergarten.

It's sad that some of us haven't evolved into anything more than a pencil monkey and are given that kind of responsibility only to botch it while looking for a banana.

I think the guy should be castrated.

[dozier77]

oh, give them more credit..

i'm sure the password was "p@ssword".

the thing that always strikes me about these stories is, why is this information on a portable computer to begin with? maybe there's a reasonable (a stretch) answer, but the premise just seems flawed.

[close5828]

What a moron...

First, who leaves a laptop in their car overnight? I sure as h-ll don't..

Second, who takes a laptop w/ confidential information home w/ them? I sure as h-ll don't..

Third, why on Earth do companies hire people that are this careless? I sure as h-ll don't...

Last, if the drive isn't encrypted (which it sounds like it wasn't), why the h-ll not?!


I happen to like Home Depot, but talk about gross negligence and borderline incompetence...

[Mike_in_Florida]

Fired...??

I must have skipped over it - I didn't see the part of the article where the manager got FIRED for this! I hope every exposed employee sues the manager *AND* Home Depot. They say they take security seriously - yeah, it shows.

Why was the laptop in his car? He obviously wasn't using it for work or it would have been inside the house being used. I take my laptop home all the time and keep NO sensitive information on it - everything is on the Network server or on my encrypted Flash drive.

[nyte3k]

why is there always that one laptop...

is it just me, or does it seem like in cases like these, there is always a laptop with ALL the data. You would think companies would get the hint and maybe just have all the data on the network, and make it so that the users can only modify/view/add/delete data via an intranet or something.

[pctec100]

Social Security Numbers?

Plenty others have already asked the question why the data was even on a client system in the first place.

I'll dig a little deeper into that and ask why a manager had access to employee SS#'s?

Hasn't Home Depot replaced SS#'s with employee ID numbers? Every HR system I've seen provides that ability so then managers can have the EID but never have access to the SS#.

[fxjamusa]

No Excuse

Inexcusable not to have device encryption installed, especially when FREE software solutions available. If home depot takes privacy/security seriously, this data would never have been compromised.

CompuSec: http://www.ce-infosys.com/english/downloads/free_compusec/index.html

Protect you data before YOU become a victim.