UK Ministry of Defense Loses Memory Stick with Military Secrets
Oops:
The USB stick, outlining training for 70 soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment, was found on the floor of The Beach in Newquay in May.
Times, locations and travel and accommodation details for the troops were included in files on the device.
It’s not the first time:
More than 120 USB memory sticks, some containing secret information, have been lost or stolen from the Ministry of Defence since 2004, it was reported earlier this year.
Some 26 of those disappeared this year == including three which contained information classified as “secret”, and 19 which were “restricted”.
I’ve written about this general problem before: we’re storing ever more data in ever smaller devices.
The point is that it’s now amazingly easy to lose an enormous amount of information. Twenty years ago, someone could break into my office and copy every customer file, every piece of correspondence, everything about my professional life. Today, all he has to do is steal my computer. Or my portable backup drive. Or my small stack of DVD backups. Furthermore, he could sneak into my office and copy all this data, and I’d never know it.
The solution? Encrypt them.
stuart • September 16, 2008 7:00 AM
Only yesterday on the news they were talking about yet more lost information, this time by the police.
It seems to be a weekly story now…
When will people learn.
Here are the links:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7616842.stm
and more data lost in hospitals
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7617490.stm