At least 18 colleges are scrambling to inform tens of thousands of students that they are at risk of having their identities stolen after SunGard, a leading software vendor, reported that a laptop owned by one of its consultants was stolen. The extent of the problem is still unknown, though many of the campuses that have been identified are in Connecticut and New York. The laptop contained students' names and Social Security numbers. In some cases, the exposed data also included financial-aid information, e-mail addresses, birth dates, and driver-identification numbers. College officials are accusing SunGard of waiting too long--about one month--to inform them of the security breach. The Connecticut attorney general has opened an inquiry into the incident, and there are widespread concerns that SunGard may not be adequately protecting college data. SunGard has set up a Web page and a 24-hour toll-free telephone number to answer customers' questions about the incident, and has offered to pay for one year of credit monitoring for affected students.