Published in News

British MoD loses shedloads of laptops, USBs, phones

by on25 November 2011



Nigel, have you seen my nuclear football anywhere?


Incompetence is definitely not the first word that comes to mind when one thinks of the UK Ministry of Defense. After all, Brits have a pretty impressive track record when it comes to war, from Agincourt to the Falklands.

However, it seems today’s generation of MoD bureaucrats is hardly living up to the relatively high expectations. They are not losing wars, at least not yet, but they are pretty good at losing electronic equipment. Over the past 18 months, MoD workers have lost 287 computers, 73 USB sticks, 72 hard drives, 28 phones and a bunch of DVDs. In one single incident 21 laptops were stolen in Germany.

However, UK’s under-secretary of state for defense Andrew Robathan claims there is no cause for concern, at least not as far as security goes. He maintains that all sensitive data is encrypted and thus inaccessible. Also, it is very unlikely that the devices contained much sensitive information in the first place.

The sheer cost of replacing hundreds of laptops lost all over Europe is another thing.

More here.



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