It seems that no one can catch a break anymore. Instead of students bringing an apple for the teacher everyday, they might want to pool their money and get their instructor some sort of identity theft service. Yet another school district in the United States has fallen prey to the wide-spread crime of data theft. Of course, like most unfortunate turn of events, the data breach impacted hard working educators and staff. This breach occurred on the east coast, in the Harrisonburg City Schools of Virginia.

At this point, the information regarding the data breach is extremely unclear. The investigation has only recently begun and there are no suspects yet named. The breach occurred through the theft of a laptop by a consultant for BB&T Insurance. BB&T provides dental coverage for the school district’s staff and faculty. The laptop was stolen out of the car of the contractor while he was in Ohio working on another client’s case. No word on why the consultant had the personal material on his private laptop. The material stolen contained limited medical records, addresses, names, and social security numbers. Authorities report that this is more than enough material to successfully steal someone’s identity.

In an effort to calm fear about the possibility of the data breach, a spokesman for BB&T assured the media that there are numerous security settings on the laptop to prevent it from being illegally accessed. He would not go in to more detail, saying only that “there are multiple levels of encryption and security which we believe will deter any criminal elements from accessing private files.” The spokesman was also reluctant to announce when the breach was first reported, since the school district was only notified in the middle of May. Once again, the spokesman told the media that he could not share any more details about the ongoing investigation, except that more details would be made clear in a press release.

At this time, there is no estimate about the number of individuals who might be affected by this breach. Mike Loso, assistant superintendent for the school district, said that an email was being sent out to the entire district to let people know about the potential risk to their personal data. A.C. MacGraw, the spokesman for BB&T said that the company plans to contact the affected individuals directly, once a number has been determined. The insurance company will offer its customers a subscription in Equifax’s Credit Watch until the threat has passed.

While a subscription to the Credit Watch is a good first step, it does not cover victims as well as other ID theft services, such as Lifelock. While Equifax monitors the credit reports of a client as seen by their system, there are still two other credit bureaus which are not included in the Credit Watch. Lifelock provides a system that monitors all three bureaus and alerts people if someone attempts to open a new credit card account or take out a loan in that person’s name.