WSU Loses Over 1 Million Peoples Personal Info on Stolen Drive
WSU has lost the personal information of over 1 million people, including social security numbers, because a hard drive backup was stolen. The problem is that the hard drive was kept in an unsecured $126 a month storage locker and a $89 safe from Home Depot according to news reports. The locker was robbed and the backup drive stolen leaving WSU embarrassed for such a dumb mistake.
Just the postage alone for the mailed letters to alert the people whose data had been stolen is costing WSU between $400-500 thousand dollars. WSU is also offering to insure the victims identity with a free year of identity protection. Some of the victims were described as "survey participants" and are irritated their identities are compromised because they took part in a survey. The theft of the data happened back on April 21st.