World's Largest Telco Admits - We Didn't Encrypt Laptop Data

No-one Likes Feeling Inferior and This is What Happens When Personal Data Like This Leaks Out

(23.06.08) - AT&T, the world's largest telecommunications carrier, has joined the growing list of companies whose reputation has been tarnished by a failure to encrypt employee's personal data which has subsequently gone missing.

"The fact that it's AT&T that has encountered this problem highlights the fact that no-one is immune to being hit by a data breach that could result in identity theft," said Michael Callahan, Chief Marketing Officer for Credant Technologies, the military grade laptop encryption specialist.

"Our observations suggest that incidents like this usually result in a significant change of policy within the company. Although this can be interpreted as shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, the silver lining in the cloud is that a positive change of company policy on encryption is always welcome," he added.

Callahan went on to say that the data loss from the laptop, which was stolen from an employee during May, also includes details of manager's salaries - something that could prove embarrassing to the managers concerned, if their details find their way on to the Web.

"No-one likes feeling inferior and this is what happens when personal data like this leaks out. The fact that AT&T is now considering encrypting all personal data held on its laptops on a company-wide basis is, however, is a positive move," he said.

For more on the AT&T laptop database faux pas: http://tinyurl.com/5o8jjp

(Credant: ma)