[ISN] Laptop thief filmed

From: InfoSec News (alerts@private)
Date: Mon Aug 27 2007 - 00:33:32 PDT


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/2007/08/24/2007-08-24_laptop_thief_filmed.html

By Alison Gendar, Tamer El-Ghobashy and Celeste Katz
Daily News Staff Writers
August 24th 2007

Cops released images yesterday of the alleged laptop thief accused of 
swiping the personal information of an untold number of city retirees.

Saturday's swiping of the laptop, which belonged to an outside 
consultant to the city Financial Information Services Agency, set off 
major alarm bells about identity theft.

A City Hall spokesman said yesterday that potentially vulnerable 
pensioners will be eligible for six months of free credit protection as 
a result of the theft.

The consultant, Gregory Harrison, 25, of Baldwin, L.I., works for an 
information technology firm called CGI-AMS. Police said his laptop was 
stolen Saturday evening from Kang Suh, a Korean restaurant at 1250 
Broadway.

"I am not at liberty to discuss anything about the case," Harrison said 
in an e-mail when contacted by the Daily News.

City Hall spokesman Jason Post said officials know that the information 
of all 280,000 pensioners was not on the laptop, but because it's 
unclear whose data was there, everyone has to be notified.

City Controller Bill Thompson said CGI-AMS should pay for credit 
protection for anyone whose data might be at risk.

"This is an extremely serious crime, and I am outraged that the 
consultant created a situation in which such a theft could even take 
place," Thompson said.

The controller's office pegged the number of potentially vulnerable 
pensioners at 283,000 retirees in the city's five pension funds: the 
City Employees' Retirement System, Police Department Pension Fund, Fire 
Department Pension Fund, Teachers' Retirement System of New York and 
city Board of Education Retirement System.

A CGI-AMS spokeswoman did not return requests for comment yesterday, and 
FISA directed questions to the mayor's office.

Yesterday, in the lobby of FISA's fourth floor offices at 450 W. 33rd 
St., a security guard stopped departing workers to check whether they 
were toting laptops out of the building.


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