Information continues to come in from news agencies regarding leaks from last year. Either the leak was not noticed immediately, or it was thought that the stolen data would be restored very quickly. North Carolina’s finance department did not immediately report a leak since it believed that the thieves had no idea of the value of the information in their hands. Other leak victims were cadets at a British air cadet corps and patients from a hospital in Lymington. InfoWatch experts point out that take-up of proper protection measures against leaks is too slow.
North Carolina’s finance department and the FBI are continuing an investigation into the theft of a laptop from the car of one of the department’s employees. The laptop contained the personal details of more than 30,000 of the state’s residents. The data included names, Social Security numbers, state employee ID numbers, and details of outstanding taxes. The computer went missing in the middle of December, 2006, but notification of victims began only on January 10th. The finance department explained that the thieves themselves, in all likelihood, do not realize the value of the data they have in their possession.
In addition, a representative stressed that it was very rare for such a lot of confidential information to be held on a laptop, and that the laptop had particular protection measures in place. Now, the management intends to beef up the rules governing the storage of private information on laptops to prevent such leaks in the future.
Meanwhile, in England, cadets at the 473rd Squadron Air Training Corps, Hartlepool, are offering a reward of 100 pounds for the return of a stolen laptop. Thieves stole the computer from the training center on the evening of January 5th. One of the center’s officers has no doubt the incident was the work of insiders since it was not possible for it to be stolen by someone not connected with the center. The situation is made worse by the fact that the back-up copies of the data lost are corrupted, meaning that the data has been lost altogether.
Again in England, at the beginning of January, 30 computers were stolen from a hospital storeroom in Lymington, Hampshire. The computers contained information about patients. It is not known what details the hard disks contained, but it is thought to be the names and addresses of patients. IT specialists were meant to check the disks, but had not done so prior to the theft. At present, an investigation is looking into whether it is necessary to inform the likely victims, and who those victims are likely to be.
Denis Zenkin, InfoWatch’s Marketing Director said, ”Yet again an American governmental agency has “excelled”. At the end of last year, the US tax office announced that over the previous 5 years it had lost nearly 500 laptop computers. And despite all the promised measures to improve data protection, InfoWatch analysts predict a large number of victims in the coming six months. This is the fault of the slow pace of progressive solutions.”
Sources: Charlotte Observer, News 14 Carolina, Hartlepool Today, thisislondon.co.uk
