US COMPUTERS STOLEN Agency Computer System Security Deters Thieves | Steve Anderson:

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Agency Computer System Security Deters Thieves

I received this story from a college student and wanted to pass it along.

“A week ago, an insurance agency office was burglarized and it appears that the burglars were looking only for personal data. They stole computer monitors, but left the CPUs and hard drives. But in the neighboring attorney’s office, they stole the computers. Reason: The lawyers had not secured their data but the agency had a super tight security system… difficult passwords, high-end encryption, the works. Their security guy said that the burglars tried to get into the system, but failed on every attempt because of the security system.

“The moral of the story: The agency dodged the bullet. They didn’t lose any client data, so they don’t have the time and expense (and loss of reputation) involved in telling their clients of a breach. The lawyers, on the other hand, are in the soup.

“It’s scary to think that people are now breaking in to only steal data. Equally scary to think that there are hundreds of agency computers, servers, flash drives, and laptops out there with little or no security. I know it’s been written about, but agents need to be reminded of the serious penalties for not dealing correctly with a data loss (in Michigan, it’s up to $750,000). Also, since this is a problem for our customers as well as agencies, we need to be selling insurance to protect against the consequences."