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| CURRENT SECTION :: News | UK's most visited IT Contractor Site - 250k unique visitors March 2008 |
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An IT supplier to the Home Office who lost an unencrypted memory stick containing the details of 84,000 prisoners is expected to be suspended from its contract. PA Consulting will temporarily forfeit its three-year work on J Track, which it won to provide a “stable future” for the department’s system to monitor offenders. Although officials only implied this action, by telling Vnunet that data-transfer to the contractor had ceased, the Home Secretary has, separately, blamed the firm outright. She said the company broke the rules on sensitive data handling, even though they were imposed on Whitehall, and its contractors, in response to a string of personal data losses. However the Independent also reported that PA Consulting refused to say whether it could be liable for compensation, and would only say ‘close collaboration’ was underway with officials. One security expert seized on the loss as further evidence that staff “working with sensitive data are being slapdash in their use of USB memory sticks”. Graham Cluley, security consultant at Sophos, also said such staff were clearly “not thinking” of the potential security risks involved when transferring data from a secured environment. “Although companies can’t strip search employees in order to prevent confidential data leaving the business premises each day, they can take steps to help fight data leakage,” he wrote on his blog. “Organisations are looking to control access to USB ports, and examining data to assess its sensitivity and encrypting it as appropriate, to prevent them being the next company or government department making headline news.” Cluley said that as 95% of data loss is accidental, controllers must take steps to reduce the chances of an accident, like a misplaced memory stick, leading to data being compromised. Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, pointed out that the security breach at the Home Office was just the “latest data loss fiasco” on the government’s watch. He called on Jacqui Smith to tell an “alarmed” public why the department has enlisted the contractor responsible for the “shambles” to help implement the billion-pound scheme for ID cards. Aug 26, 2008 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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