23 Mar 2011
Leicester City Council has confirmed the loss of a memory stick that contains details of about 4,000 vulnerable people to a local newspaper.
The people were signed up to LeicesterCare, a service that supports vulnerable city residents. The memory stick includes medical details, as well as 2,000 keysafe codes – these are codes that allow carers access to the residents' homes.
The loss has been reported to the police and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which has begun its own investigation.
The stick was supposed to be locked in a safe each night at the council offices, and all the information is encoded.
This news comes almost two years after Leicester City Council signed an undertaking with the ICO for losing details of 80 children on an unencrypted memory stick.
"We can confirm we are investigating the possible loss of a data device that contains personal details of around 4,000 LeicesterCare users," said a spokesperson for the council.
"At this time we have no reason to believe this data has been removed deliberately," they added.
The council also confirmed that the data would not be accessible to anyone who may find the stick.
Earlier this week security firm Symantec released an annual report highlighting the fact that an average data breach incident cost UK organisations £1.9m in 2010, a 13 per cent increase on 2009 figures.
“This news once again stands as testament to the fact that current storage security solutions for removable storage are not adequate or do not fit the way that users and organisations need to operate in order to remain efficient and productive.
Complex endpoint security solutions that only allow specific USB devices or approved removable media to be used are extremely expensive and cumbersome, which almost certainly led to Leicester City Council relying on the rather out-dated need to lock up the memory stick in a safe every night.
By using a solution that could remotely self destruct the data the moment they realised the memory stick had been misplaced would have afforded them an extra level of security and protection.
Posted by: Tom Colvin, CTO, Conseal Security 23 Mar 2011
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