Ameriprise Loses 150,000 Customer Records Stored On Unencrypted Laptop

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What kind of credit card company lets an employee take home a laptop containing the sensitive financial records of 150,000 employees? Ameriprise, that's who.

What kind of credit card company lets an employee take home a laptop containing the sensitive financial records of 150,000 employees? Ameriprise, that’s who.

Ameriprise Financial, a recent spin-off of American Express, has notified more than 150,000 customers and more than 65,000 financial advisors of a potential data breach.

The company says a laptop computer containing sensitive personal information was stolen from a car in December.

The location of the city in which the theft took place was not divulged and the company isn’t saying who the employee was. Company officials said the case is still under investigation.

The article goes on to explain that while the data was password protected, it wasn’t encrypted. Swell. Why can’t you guys keep our credit card numbers deep within your AM-like supercomputers, where they belong? Next story on the Consumerist: Visa loses one million cocktail napkins on which your financial information has been lazy scrawl with a hooker’s lipstick tube.

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