Theft of Home Depot laptop Puts 10,000 at Risk

Home Depot on Wednesday confirmed a company laptop was stolen that contains personal information about approximately 10,000 employees of the do-it-yourself retailing giant.

Several weeks ago, a Home Depot human-resources representative in Massachusetts took a laptop computer home to do some additional work and had the PC stolen from his vehicle parked in front of his house, according to a company official. The notebook stored personal information, including names, addresses and Social Security numbers of roughly 10,000 employees, she says. The data was not encrypted, but the system was password protected, she adds.

Once Home Depot investigated the theft and determined which employees' data was stored on the notebook, the company notified potential victims and is offering one year of credit monitoring for free, the official says.

"We have no reason to believe the data was the target of this theft," says the official, adding that the company has received no evidence of identity theft as a result of the incident.

Home Depot is continuing to work with law enforcement on an investigation into the theft.