US Department of Transportation Loses 133, 000 Social Security & Address Records of Florida Residents

The US Department of Transportation has announced that a Dell laptop computer containing names, addresses and social security numbers of 133,000 Florida residents was stolen two weeks ago.

The information on the missing laptop included people in Miami-Dade County who hold commercial drivers licenses, Florida residents who have pilot’s licenses and people who got their Florida drivers licenses from a facility in Largo, Fla.

David Barnes, communications director for the office of the inspector general at DOT, the information was not encrypted.

Barnes noted that even though the data is not encrypted, it is still password protected, and he said that the protection meets NIST standards.

Barnes said that the agency is offering a $10,000 reward for the return of the Dell Latitude model C640 laptop computer. He asked anyone who might have information to call 800-424-9071 and mentioned that this information can also be sent via the Web site at oig.dot.gov. via eWeek

Human’s are always the weakest link in computer data security. The agents SUV was broken into while he was having lunch.