Latest UK personal data loss

[nihil]

Well, it's happened again. A contracting company working for the government have "lost" the records of habitual criminals.

The Government has been accused of complacency over its handling of personal information after laying the blame for the latest loss of sensitive data squarely at the door of an external contractor.

Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said the loss of a computer memory stick containing the details of all 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales was "unforgivable". But the breach of data security rules was the fault of PA Consulting, not officials in his department, he said.

"It wasn't me it was the cat wot done it"

"What we are very clear about is that all the security protocols, as I understand it, were maintained by the Home Office in terms of the encryption of data and passing the data on in encrypted form. That has been downloaded not in encrypted form and that's where the breach appears to have happened."

"Some of them won't never learn"

Article here:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20...s-6323e80.html

And these guys legislate security best practices for us?

[t34b4g5]

I wonder just how many heads are going to hit the chopping' block, i mean it's not a small loss but a potentially huge loss.

files on 84,000 individuals is a pretty big loss. And it's pretty funny that the pointing the finger and blaming everyone else has already started also.
Of course some poor individual will be taking the fall for this "blunder".

[nihil]

Of course some poor individual will be taking the fall for this "blunder"

I understand that the individual concerned has already been suspended pending an investigation.

The disturbing thing from my point of view is that nobody seems to be seeing the big picture?

1. Security model
2. Security policy
3. Security processes
4. Security procedures

With appropriate auditing and management of the above.

I worked in the armaments industry for a number of years, with responsibility for the system that controlled the creation, destruction, custody, location and movement of secret documentation. We did not have these problems