Ah - we , errmmm, seem to have…well what I mean is….well. Oh bugger.
You can almost imagine the embarrassment of the Home Office. A laptop that the Home Office lost 4years ago has turned up. Which under normal circumstances you might think was a good thing. Well - not quite. You see the reason that it has turned up is that someone bought it. On eBay….
It came to light that something “wasn’t quite right” when the laptop was sent to Leapfrog Computers Limited to have some repairs done. When they opened it up there was a CD inside (bizarrely between the keyboard and the motherboard) was marked:
HOME OFFICE and HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL.
I don’t think ‘oops’ quite says enough really.
It does get worse though. Apparently a Home Office spokeswoman said that there was no reason to be concerned as the disk was ‘encrypted’. Oh that’s okay then… No one can go to the Internet to download decryption software can they? I mean, getting a piece of
software that is capable of reading an encrypted CD would be really tough wouldn’t it?
Well - maybe not. Clicking on the image to the right will show you just how very easy it is to find software even doing a Google search. Couple this with the fact that the really effective software Google exclude from their results (just ask the Israelis) and you can start to imagine just how serious this breach could be.
Let’s not be too inflammatory however. Chances are that the contents of this CD are worthless in real terms and are just a conspiracy theorists wet dream. It isn’t the contents of the CD that I am concerned with though. It is the complete lack of any awareness of how to secure digital media and information that our government appears to have.
With virtually limitless resource and funds you would think that the UK government could do better than simply hoping that the encryption will be enough. Paedophiles who use the Internet to ploy their disgusting tendencies know better than this. The Police are starting to find increasing amounts of advice to amongst these people to install software that means that any tampering with the HDD or by 
shutting the PC in a way that is different to the pre-determined sequence ‘burns’ the HDD. Effectively rendering it useless and completely beyond the capabilities of recovery.
Once again this demonstrates that the criminal fraternity are way in advance of our security services and the Government. I would love to see a Home Office spokesperson in a room of geeks and for her to tell them that the HDD is secure and that she has no concerns about the security of the data held on it.
I can virtually guarantee that a pack of geeks would have the data published on BBS inside the time it took her to cut up the pizza and pour the coffees that they had asked for in payment to prove her wrong.
Bottom line?
If you want your data to be secure - don’t rely on other people to make it that way.
Just because I am paranoid doesn’t mean that they AREN’T out to get me!
I have run out of coffee - fancy buying me one? Tags: advice, AREN, awareness, breach, bugger, Chances, circumstances, Clicking, CONFIDENTIAL, conspiracy, conspiracy theorists, decryption, download, eBay, effective software, Effectively, embarrassment, encryption, fact, fraternity, google, google search, hdd, image, information, internet, israelis, lack, laptop, Leapfrog, Limited, limitless resource, Office, office spokeswoman, paedophiles, piece, ploy, Police, reason, right, sequence, someone, something, tendencies, uk government, way, wet dream
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