The thieves broke into the building in nighttime raids, making off with computer equipment that contained confidential information on state orders. The culprits have been caught, but some of the stolen equipment is still missing. According to experts at InfoWatch, the secret state data is still out there just waiting to be found.
Russian law enforcers have tracked down and returned some of the office equipment stolen from the St. Petersburg office of the Committee for Economic Development, Industrial Policies and Trade (CEDIPT) in July, CNews reports. However, it appears that detectives have failed to retrieve all the PCs that contained confidential documents.
On August 15, law enforcers in Russia’s second city returned six monitors and two computers that were stolen on July 23 and 28 to CEDIPT’s office. Four computers, a laptop, one monitor and a fax machine are still unaccounted for. On the night of July 23 four drunken youths gained entry to the committee’s office from the roof before stealing the computers, laptop and fax. On July 28 the same youths broke into the office again. Some of the stolen items were left on the street; some were traced to retail outlets, while others had already been sold. Those suspected of committing the thefts have been detained and have confessed to local police.
Although the thefts appear to be run-of-the-mill crimes, it may well be the case that the youths were targeting municipal documents such as records of tenders, committee minutes, or committee decisions. There have even been suggestions that a local business group was behind the thefts. An investigation into the incidents has found that local law enforcers, who failed to pick up the thefts on video surveillance equipment, and poor security at the committee building were to blame for the ease with which the youths entered the building.
“This is a case where the stolen information is far more valuable than the equipment it was stored on, and therefore it should have been protected by encryption rather than metal doors and video cameras. In that case the damage would have been a few thousand dollars, but there would have been no data breach. Now the organization’s reputation has been damaged and there is also the risk that the information has ended up in the wrong hands,” warns Denis Zenkin, marketing director at InfoWatch.
Source: CNews
