Of all the people at your workplace that you’d hope would not violate employees’ trust by stealing their personal information and using it for illicit gain, it would probably be the folks in corporate human resources. But you’d be wrong, at least in the case of the three Home Depot HR staffers who have been arrested for allegedly stealing co-workers’ information to open bogus credit card accounts.

The information thefts, which affected some 300 employees at the hardware and home improvement chain, were initially detected last fall and those employees whose files were compromised were notified of the breach.

Home Depot was tipped to the scam after one of the three employees was caught using her Home Depot e-mail to send the stolen information — including Social Security numbers and birthdates — to her alleged co-conspirators, one of whom is her daughter.

“Our corporate security, IT security and legal teams quickly investigated the matter and notified law enforcement, and the three associates were subsequently arrested,” said the Depot’s Director of Corporate Communications.

The 300 employees listed in the e-mail were contacted and offered free credit monitoring, but the retailer admits the possiblity that other employees may have been affected.

“Out of an abundance of caution and looking at the universe of those whose information might have been exposed – which we believe is between 10 and 20 thousand – we’ll notify others as needed,” the company rep, who adds that no customer information was compromised, as these “rogue” employees did not have access to that data.

Home Depot employees charged with stealing co-workers’ personal info [WSBTV.com]

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