[Dataloss] [Update - Towers Perrin] Random House, American Express?

[Dissent]

So far, this is the only published reference I've found to Random
House and AmEx being affected by the Towers Perrin breach.  Maybe
more will be published within the next few days...

http://www.gawker.com/news/random-house/random-house-to-employees-oops-we-lost-your-social-our-bad-231384.php

[...]

Dear Random House Employee or former Employee:

I write to inform you about a matter of concern that came to our
attention recently. In 2003, Bertelsmann engaged the services of the
consulting firm Towers Perrin to work on a project on behalf of all
Bertelsmann companies in the United States, including Random House.
For the purposes of this project, Towers Perrin had access to
employee data, including names, Social Security numbers, addresses,
dates of birth and other information related to your employment, but
no bank or credit card information.

Bertelsmann was recently informed by Towers Perrin that computers
which may have contained this data were stolen from their offices on
approximately November 27, 2006. The suspect, an employee of Towers
Perrin, has subsequently been arrested, but the computers themselves
have not yet been retrieved. As an employee of record at Random
House in December 2004, your employee information may have been
included in this data on the stolen computers. Only individuals who
may have been affected by this incident are receiving information
regarding the possible data loss.

[...]

Update: All Amex employees apparently received a near-identical memo
yesterday; one suspects that "there's more to this than they're
letting on" (fwiw).


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