Sensitive data of 51,000 current and former employees of Agilent Technologies, a measurement and instrument company based in Santa Clara, Calif, was stored on a laptop stolen March 1 from an Agilent vendor’s car in San Francisco.

What type of personal information? Names, Social Security numbers, home addresses, details on stock options.

Details: Agilent, in a letter to victims, blamed the mishap on a San Jose vendor, Stock & Option Solutions, for not encrypting the data, in violation of an agreement. Agilent said it has no reason to believe any of the data has been used fraudulently.

What was the response? Agilent is offering affected employees one year of free credit monitoring.

Source: MercuryNews.com, San Jose Mercury News, “Stolen PC had Agilent workers’ personal data,” March 22.