Identity Theft News

Los Alamos reports more stolen computers

Friday, February 13, 2009

In what is becoming an unfortunate trend, Los Alamos National Laboratory is reporting more computers are either missing or were stolen from employees of the national security research institution in New Mexico, according to an internal memo.

The memo, posted online by SCMagazineus.com, states that recently three computers were reported missing from an employee's residence on January 16th and that in the last year a total of 13 have been stolen or lost. In all, 69 computers are still missing from the lab.

Kevin Roark, spokesman for the lab, told the website none of the missing machines were labeled classified, but may have contained personal information on employees or other individuals.

"If we determine it's likely that someone's PII [personally identifiable information] has been compromised, we provide resources to those people to protect them from identity theft. But the serious matter is whether there was classified info involved, which it was not," Roark said.

In response to the Los Alamos memo, Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a federal government watchdog, released a separate memo addressing concerns about the lab's seemingly lack of security, eWeek.com reports.ADNFCR-1765-ID-19025001-ADNFCR

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