<p>[Horizon</a> BCBS notifying 840,000 members after laptops stolen with personal data | NJ.com](<a href=“http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2013/12/horizon_bcbs_notifying_840000.html]Horizon”>Horizon BCBS notifying 840,000 members after laptops stolen with personal data - nj.com)</p>
<p>They had unencrypted data on laptops! Isn’t encryption of personal data a priority? What a lack of protection of PHI. Can anyone just waltz into their premises and remove items?</p>
<p>It is bad enough that companies like Horizon try to evade their responsibilities like proper payment of claims (I know, I am a medical office administrator), but to loose data on 840,000 people is truly complete negligence, IMHO. Since there was a previous incident in 2008, it is not as if they had no idea that this could happen. I am sure that someone is getting paid a great salary or consulting fee to provide IT “security”.</p>
<p>I plan on writing complaining letters to my legislators. This is the biggest insuror in NJ.</p>
<p>Well, to be fair, the article points out that the laptops were cable-locked to employee workstations.</p>
<p>Five seconds or less to cut with a wire cutter. Not really secure. Locked in a vault at night - that would be secure.</p>
<p>We got this letter yesterday. And the one that they sent out a few years ago when this first happened. </p>
<p>I suspect that the theft was an ‘inside’ job. </p>
<p>And while I’m sure that there is an IT person handling security, it’s quite possible that this person suggested the idea of a locked vault (or something similar) but the idea was rejected by upper management. Too expensive perhaps? My DH regularly advises companies on computer security but his ideas are not always implemented (usually due to cost and the ever popular ‘that will never happen to us’).</p>
<p>If I worked there, I wouldn’t want to bother to have to lock up my laptop night after night after night. PITA.</p>
<p>Of course it would be inconvenient. It’s might inconvenient for people who work in the pharma industry to have to get changed every time they need to go into a ‘clean’ room. And it’s highly inconvenient for medical personnel to have to wash their hands every time they enter a patient’s room (ask a nurse about chapped hands!). I could go on but you get the idea. When there is something higher at stake, you put up with inconvenience. People’s personal info on a computer - how’s that for high stakes?!</p>