Laptop theft exposes Hotels.com customer data
12.06.2006
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thousands of Hotels.com customers may have had their personal information exposed after a laptop containing Hotels.com data was stolen from an employee of Ernst & Young, the travel site's auditor.
Hotels.com, a unit of Expedia Inc., told 243,000 of its customers late last week that their names, addresses and credit or debit card information may have been compromised in the theft, according to a letter sent to customers.
The laptop was stolen in February from the employee's car in what appeared to be a random theft and the computer was password protected, Ernst & Young said. The auditing firm did not did not tell Hotels.com of the theft until May.
"There was a lot of data on the computer and it took a considerable amount of time to identify what that data was," Ernst & Young spokesman Charlie Perkins said.
Ernst & Young said it is offering free credit monitoring for one year to all Hotels.com customers affected by the laptop theft, and is working with Hotels.com to reach out to customers whose information is on the computer. The auditing firm also said it has enhanced its security procedures to encrypt laptop computers for additional data protection.
Ernst & Young, one of the "Big Four" accounting firms, had problems with another laptop theft earlier this year. A computer containing the personal information of workers at Sun Microsystems, IBM, Cisco, BP Plc and Nokia was stolen.
Article sourced from www.reuters.co.uk
