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February 25, 2006
Let us advise you on bungling your security
We suspect Ernst & Young will have to dedicate some of the billable hours it usually devotes to advising its corporate clients on data security to umm, advising itself on data security. The company plonked some of its clients' personal data on to a laptop, unencrypted of course, which one of its employees left in "a locked car". Not surprisingly, someone unlocked the car - not that difficult to do - and pinched the laptop. The company reports that the laptop was password protected (that ought to hold up a competent thief for possibly 15 minutes). The firm was forced to inform its clients - including Sun CEO Scott McNealy - that their personal IDs had been compromised.
Maybe there's an incompetence virus going around big accounting firms, because a Deloitte & Touche auditor left a CD - unencrypted of course - containing the names, social security numbers and stock holdings of 9000 McAfee's employees in an airline seat pocket. Never mind, says the company. It's probably been tossed into a garbage bin. So , you know, why bother with all this encryption stuff?
This brings the number of personal IDs compromised by corporate stuff-ups to a mere 53.3 million, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.
Posted by cw at February 25, 2006 10:47 PM
Comments
Deloitte & Touche are right of course, my admin password is "Password" because people probably won't get passed my firewall.
Posted by: wilbert at February 26, 2006 11:13 AM
That may be OK for the data on your PC, but with SS number and names you can impersonate people and get money for nothing (possibly even chicks for free).
cheers, Paul
Posted by: Paul at February 26, 2006 05:16 PM