Three AOL Employees Gone After Data Breach

Two employees at Dulles, Va., technology company AOL have been fired and the company’s chief technology officer has resigned after a substantial data breach.

An internal memo and a source familiar with the incident said the exits followed an announcement by the company that more than 36 million member search queries had been released on the Internet, including many Social Security and credit card numbers, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The memo, written by AOL Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Miller, said Maureen Govern had decided to resign immediately after it was revealed that her division was responsible for the leak. The researcher who posted the data and that researcher’s supervisor were fired.

The source, an employee speaking on condition of anonymity, said the company has begun notifying those people whose personal information was compromised, the Post reported.

Miller said in a separate memo that AOL will set up a task force to decide how long search items and other data should be saved. He said access to that data would be further restricted.