Laptop theft exposes Gap's data security gap
A thief stole a laptop computer containing unencrypted personal information of 800,000 people who applied for jobs at Gap, the clothing retailer announced Friday.
The laptop stored Social Security numbers and other data from people in the US, Puerto Rico and Canada who applied online and by phone between July 2006 and June 2007 for jobs at Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Outlet stores.
Mirroring TJX Fiasco
The incident came on the heels of a finding this week by the Canadian government that another international retailer TJX hadn't sufficiently encrypted data it stored from customer transactions, and that failure enabled hackers who intercepted wireless communications to steal data on millions of customers.
The break-in gave hackers undetected access to TJX's central databases for a year and a half, exposing at least 45 million credit and debit cards to potential fraud.
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