Data Stolen From Auditor

A laptop was stolen from the trunk of an Ernst & Young employee’s car, compromising the names and credit card numbers of 243,000 customers of Hotels.com, which was on the machine. The theft occurred in February, but Ernst & Young was not able to determine what was on the computer until early May, at which time it and Hotels.com began notifying the affected individuals. Those affected can avail themselves of a free credit-monitoring service. This incident marks the third time this year the auditor has exposed data belonging to its clients, following an incident that compromised data from Goldman Sachs and another incident involving several companies. Ernst & Young said it has no reason to believe the thief was specifically seeking the information on the computer. It has since added new security protections to the laptops of its 30,000 employees in the United States and Canada.

Wall Street Journal, 2 June 2006 (sub. req’d)