UK Ministry of Defense Admits to Losing Hundreds of Unencrypted Laptops
I am in London, UK this week.
The UK Ministry of Defense has admitted to losing 340 laptops over the last two years, and less than half of them were encrypted. A further 215 USB memory sticks were lost, and many were not encrypted either. When you add up lost mobile phones, CDs, PDAs as well, it turns out that only 20% of these were encrypted.
I spent much of the day being interviewed by security and business press. There is considerable interest in how the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will deal with government agencies that have lax security and data protection practices. For corporations, the ICO can now fine up to 500,00 pounds, but it’s unclear how government bureaus will be disciplined.