Google USA loses employee data to burglars

Google is not to blame for this, because the data was not stolen from Google offices but from the headquarters of an outsourced HR company called Colt Express. The thieves broke in and stole company computers that contained unencrypted data on them, data such as name, address, Social Security number, basically everything you would need for an ID theft. Google and other companies that employed Colt Express are influenced by the recent break in.

The authorities assume that the thieves were interested in the computers' monetary value, as they are simple burglars, not ID thieves. At this time, there is no evidence to support the claim that the purpose of the burglary was to obtain the data on the PCs.

Information on Danny Thorpe, a former engineer with Google, was on one of those computers. He has just now been informed by letter about the incident. The letter was sent from Google and mentioned that all employees that joined the company since the 31st of December 2005 may have had their private data stolen. It did not include any credit card info.

Although Google is not directly responsible for the incident, it has willingly offered aid to all those involved in the matter. This aid comes in the form of money, more precisely Google will pay for a one year subscription to a service that specializes in detecting ID theft. Colt Express should pay for this, but Samuel Colt III himself has come out to say that they "do not have the resources, financial and otherwise, to assist you further," as reported by ZDNet.

Google is no longer a customer of Colt Express: "We take the security of our employees very seriously and require outside vendors to meet appropriate security standards. We review and update these standards on an ongoing basis. Google is not currently using Colt's services and had made this decision long before this incident".