Recently, files containing confidential data on about 5 000 employees at MTV Networks were illegally accessed by someone outside the company, according to the network. The security breach occurred when data was compromised over an internet connection on an employee’s computer.

While the company declined to provide any information about how many employees were affected or what the nature of the compromised information was, an internal memo from executive vice president for human resources at MTV Networks Catherine Houser, stated the personal information in the files included names, birth dates, social security numbers and compensation data.

MTV is currently conducting an investigation in connection with the breach.

Parent company, Viacom said police have launched a criminal investigation and the company is offering credit-monitoring to alert and protect the identities of the affected employees. MTV did not release further details of the attack.

HealthNow NewYork alerted some 40 000 members in Western and Northeastern New York State that they may be at risk for identity theft after a former employee’s laptop computer went missing with confidential information several months ago.

The parent, Blue Cross BlueShield of Western New York, sent letters to affected customers last week, according to a report in The Buffalo News.

According to that report, the potential information included names, dates of birth, social security numbers, addresses, employer group names and health insurance identifier numbers.

The laptop was not encrypted but did have security features such as the requirement to enter the user’s identification number and passcode after 15 minutes of inactivity. The company also shut down the laptop’s access to the corporate network and said it had not detected any activity from the laptop since its disappearance.

HealthNow New York has reconfigured its claims software system and has tightened its policies and procedures about use of laptops and other mobile devices.

These latest events are small compared to the most significant breach this decade at retailer TJX, which was acknowledged by the company in January 2007.

Data thieves broke into the companies processing servers and removed credit and debit card information on more than 100 million accounts.