As the result of the theft of three mobile computers in London, around 15,000 British policemen face possible identity theft. InfoWatch experts strongly advise against keeping unprotected data on mobile devices and storage devices which employees take outside organization perimeters since the possible consequences are so serious.
At the end of last week, three laptops were stolen from a medium-sized London accountancy firm. The laptops themselves were not particularly valuable. But the information they contained was extremely important: The private details of more than 15,000 London policemen.
The company, LogicaCMC, manages salary payment accounts for officers at Scotland Yard and the company’s current seven-year accountancy contract is worth 31 million pounds. It is not yet clear whether the theft was an inside job, although police are questioning one internal suspect. The physical whereabouts of the laptops has not yet been established. But fortunately, the data they held did not include telephone numbers or addresses. But InfoWatch experts consider that there is still sufficient information to allow the fraudulent use of identity, in particular, Social Security numbers.
The police themselves decline to give further details in this on-going case, and they are yet to make clear whether the details held on the computers was encrypted or protected in any way. The press is getting its information from an anonymous source close to the investigation. LogicaCMC has made a statement, however, that they will tighten information control in the future. At present, the embarrassed accountancy firm is cooperating closing with law-enforcement agencies to identify the criminals and retrieve the laptops.
Meanwhile, in the US, a man has been arrested on suspicion of stealing a laptop computer. The computer belonged to the Ministry of Transport and held the personal information of about 133,000 Florida pilots and drivers, and was stolen in June. The laptop itself – as with the Scotland Yard incident – is yet to be found.
The suspect was identified in the course of the investigation, led by the Miami police and ID Analytics Inc. – a specialist analytical agency from San Diego. An entire criminal gang was discovered in the course of investigating this theft. The thieves – who did not tax themselves overly, simply re-installing the operating system on stolen laptops before selling them – worked in a single area, and one member was apprehended not far from the site of the theft of the transport ministry’s laptop. Despite the fact that the gang’s goal was to simply to profit from the sale of a stolen computer, InfoWatch cannot rule out later dissemination of the personal data the laptop contained.
Denis Zenkin, InfoWatch’s Marketing Director commented, “People can be stubborn, preferring to learn from their own mistakes rather than other people’s. Almost daily, cases of laptop theft occur, involving the unprotected details of thousands of people. And yet, the companies next door, do nothing to protect their data.”
Sources: ZDNet.co.uk, thisislondon.co.uk, Government Computer News
