Already this year, there have been three episodes - look
here,
here and
here. This latest, however, isn't due to a lapse in the drugmaker's systems, but can be traced to the company that provides cars to Pfizer employees, such as the sales reps. Last week,
Wheels sent letters to about 1,800 Pfizer spouses and domestic partners saying there was a "temporary encryption error in the security system of a web site Wheels Inc was using to collect data."
As a result, personal info was "briefly transmitted over the Internet in an unsecured manner." What kind of info? Names, addresses, date of birth and driver's license numbers. The info was to have been used for background checks in order for spouses or domestic partners of Pfizer employees to be eligible to drive the leased company car, Stratford Dick, Wheels' marketing director told Pharmalot.
But he insists Wheels took "immediate steps to ensure that the data encryption was implemented appropriately." There was no breach of Wheels website, he adds, and there's no evidence to suggest that any of the unencrypted information was misused in any way. As a precautionary measure, the leasing company is offering two years of credit protection and credit restoration services free of charge. Whether that will please Pfizer employees remains to be seen. Meanwhile, Dick says a review of Wheels’ data-collection systems has been conducted to ensure that this situation doesn't occur again.