A computer disk belonging to the Rhode Island Department of Administration has gone missing.

How many victims? 1,400, mostly state employees whose Social Security numbers were kept in human resources records.

What type of personal information? Social Security numbers.

Details: Officials do not believe the disk was stolen and have no reason to believe any of the information on it has been misused.

What was the response? The department urged victims to place a fraud alert on their credit file.

Quote:"We don't believe that individuals outside of the organization had any access to that data at any point in that time." - Melanie Marcaccio, the department's deputy personnel director.

Source:SouthCoastToday.com, Associated Press story, "Rhode Island says disk with Social Security numbers is missing," March 21.