Yet another case of lost data

Donor data stolen from Dallas Red Cross

A laptop containing personal information from thousands of blood donors — including Social Security numbers and medical histories — has been stolen from a local office of the American Red Cross.

But Red Cross officials note that the information was encrypted.

"We haven't viewed this as a security breach at this point," said Darren Irby, spokesman for the national American Red Cross office.

The laptop was one of three stolen from a locked closet in the Farmers Branch office of the American Red Cross in May, but the two others did not contain the personal information.

It could be worse. It's not as though someone took data out of a secured location and left it easily available - the Red Cross office's physical security was compromised. And the data was encrypted - but was it strongly encrypted? We can only hope.

I've long expected my credit card companies, my banks, my insurance companies to leave data out there blowing in the wind. No one really is safe, it seems.