This deluge continues. Numerous companies have managed to lose data for their customers including Ernst & Young, Iron Mountain, Wells Fargo and the Department of Veteran Affairs. Now we find another company to add to this unfortunate list, Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corp. via Toronto based Hummingbird Ltd. It turns out that the data on 1.3 million customers has “disappeared”.
The piece of equipment, which the company did not identify, was lost May 24. Officials said encrypted electronic files containing the data were sent to Hummingbird Ltd., which helps companies manage large amounts of information. A Hummingbird employee downloaded, decrypted and stored the files on a piece of equipment that was later lost.
Toronto-based Hummingbird is still searching for the missing equipment, company president and chief executive Barry Litwin said. He said it is “extremely unlikely” that someone would use the information inappropriately because it is password-protected “many times over.”
The lost data has as of yet not led to any identity thefts at press time.
[tags]Hummingbird Ltd., Texas Guaranteed, Data Loss, Data Security, Identity Theft[/tags]