p2pnet - rss feed: Secret Home Office data CD on eBay
p2pnet news | Security:- Highly confidential data were available on a CD stashed hidden a UK Home Office laptop computer sold on eBay.
“The CD was found between the keyboard and circuit board of the laptop by computer repair technicians in Westhoughton, near Bolton,” says the BBC, going on:
“Technicians at the shop called police who sent around anti-terrorist officers to confiscate the machine, which had been bought in good faith.
The laptop had been taken into the store by a customer and when engineers took off the keyboard, “they found a CD marked ‘Home Office - highly confidential’,” says the story.
Managing director Lee Bevan thought it was a spoof, but when he put the disk into the drive to check it, he found it was encrypted.
“The Home Office said the fact the data was encrypted ’safeguarded’ it, which is broadly true,” says The Register, adding:
“Assuming properly-implemented modern encryption, it would be practically impossible to read the files on a laptop or disk without possession of the relevant keys.
“However, in certain unusual circumstances a savvy attacker can lift the keys from computer memory. More plausibly, keys are often written down and carried about together with laptops, are easily guessed, or otherwise discovered.
“The possibility also exists of the encrypted government files having been copied, which is much easier than decrypting them - although not as trivially easy as copying normal unprotected files.”
Also See:
BBC - Home Office CD in auction laptop, February 28, 2008
The Register - Confidential Home Office data turns up in laptop on eBay, February 28, 2008
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