Making Headlines

From the lighter side of computer repair news comes this story not from greater Fort Lauderdale, but from the UK yesterday.

Which doesn't mean Fort Lauderdale computer repair agencies haven't made some startling discoveries of their own, but this one takes the cake.

Turns out it's just the latest in a series of high-profile cases in the UK involving security breaches or confidential data falling into the wrong hands.

England's Home Office is under well-deserved scrutiny after a disc with confidential data from the government department was somehow discovered hidden under the keyboard of a laptop that had been sold on eBay.

The disc, concealed under the keyboard of the laptop was uncovered by a Machester computer repair organization when the machine was brought in for a problem to be investigated. What a discovery they made.

"This seemed like just another repair" stated Lee Bevan, the managing director of LeapFrog Computers, the computer service that found it.

"The customer said he bought it on eBay and it seemed quite innocent. It was only when we opened it up we found the disc with the words Home Office Confidential written on it hidden under the keyboard. We tried to read it, but couldn't as it was encrypted."

The Home Office has launched an inquiry as to how the confidential files ended up in the hands of the computer repair shop.

A spokesman for the department confirmed that the data, which along with the laptop are now with Greater Manchester Police, is encrypted, not just password protected.

That fact is in contrast to many recent data losses and security breaches where data has either been unprotected altogether or locked with only basic password protection.

This is the latest in a number of high-profile and embarrassing data losses by government departments and agencies.

In addition to the HM Revenue and Customs CD loss that's compromised 25 million data records, the Ministry of Defence, HNS and Ministry of Justice have all been found to have lost confidential data relating to personnel, public and matters of state in recent months.

Continue reading this article by England's IT Pro ...