Some 4,800 patients may have had their names, Social Security numbers and health care information exposed to criminals after someone stole a laptop from University Healthcare hospital in Utah.

What happened? Someone broke into a locked office and stole the machine on Feb. 25, but hospital officials believe the thief was not after the data.

What was the response? The hospital sent notification letters to victims and is providing them with one year of free credit monitoring. Employees are no longer allowed to download sensitive information onto their laptops.

Details: The data was password protected.

Source: kutv.com, KUTV, “Possibly thousands of patient’s information compromised with laptop theft,” March 13.