A hard drive containing the names and Social Security numbers of more than 263 teachers, state employees, and consultants vanished from the School Department earlier this week, baffling officials.
An auditor at the Department of Education's Malden headquarters arrived at work Tuesday to find his computer wasn't working. Technical workers identified the problem: His hard drive was missing. Someone had taken it.
Exactly why is a mystery police will try to unravel.
"This is an employee who conducts audits and doesn't have especially salacious information on his computer," Education Department spokeswoman Heidi Guarino said last night. "It really has everyone scratching their heads."
The drive contained random audits done on payroll accounts, Guarino said. Officials initially thought it did not contain any Social Security numbers, but after reviewing thousands of backup files, they learned on Wednesday that more than 200 Social Security numbers and other business information had been compromised, she said.
State and local police are investigating, she said, with assistance from the attorney general's office.
Guarino said department employees spent Thursday and yesterday tracking down people and telling them about the breach. The department also sent out a letter yesterday to everyone affected by the theft.
Guarino said she had not received any reports that the Social Security numbers have been used improperly and that no one had reported unusual activity in their bank accounts by last night.
The auditor's computer had been working fine when he left the office on Monday evening, she added.
"It's a very weird situation."
