Laptop theft exposes 243,000 Hotels.com customers

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A seemingly random theft has led to another potential breach of personal data--this time name, address and credit card data from Hotels.com customers. A laptop belonging to an Ernst & Young employee was stolen in a car theft earlier this year. Ernst & Young is the auditor for Hotels.com, an Expedia company, and the laptop contained personal data on Hotels.com customers.

Hotels.com was notified of the theft of the laptop, which contained data for about 243,000 customers, on May 3, a representative for Hotels.com said. "Ernst & Young informed us that the vehicle was broken into in late February," said the representative. "We immediately began reconstructing the data. Once we were notified, we began working as expeditiously as possible to determine which customers were impacted and to notify them. We began sending letters to affected customers last week."