MyLaptopGPS » theft

UPDATE: Breached Data of 3.3 Million Student Loan Borrowers Found…In Police Evidence Room

Dan Yost — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:12:17 +0000

Here’s an update to a recent Rip of the Week concerning 3.3 million breached records of federal student loan recipients. It turns out that the data, which existed on “CDs and floppy discs,” was recovered shortly after the theft and was only recently discovered in a police evidence room, and connected to the case.

WCCO reports, and thanks to Jon P for the tip.

It’s reported that the data doesn’t appear to have been compromised. A major, major bullet dodged!

Rip of the Week: 3.3 Million Student Loan Borrowers Breached

Dan Yost — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 17:07:26 +0000

If you are a college student, or were a college student, and you had a student loan, it’s time to worry. Officials of St. Paul-based Educational Credit Management Corp. revealed that an unencrypted portable device was stolen during the weekend of March 20-21. The Wall Street Journal reports, and thanks to kirniki on DLDB for the heads up.

On that unencrypted device? 3,300,000 names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and other personal data on borrowers. Over three million college students breached, one single device, no real security.

Officials say it was “a simple, old-fashioned theft” and “not a hacker incident.” Of course that’s of almost no consolation.

The list continues to grow. And of course, had the device been encrypted with patent-pending and NIST FIPS Level 2 certified MyLaptopGPS strong encryption, or any other decent encryption, there would be no issue here.

Tip of the Week: Use Technology to Beat Your Employees

Dan Yost — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:15:16 +0000

Interesting: back on May 27, my Tip of the Week was entitled “Assume Your Employees Ignore You.” I described how employees really pay little attention to company policy, or even actively break it.

Then, two weeks (to the day) later, Ponemon Institute released another superb study, sponsored by IronKey, this time entitled “Trends in Insider Compliance with Data Security Policies” with the following subtitle:

“Employees Evade and Ignore Security Policies”

If you are tempted to accuse me of collusion or conspiracy here, as if I was actually in on the Ponemon study, hold back! I had no involvement and knew nothing of the impending release. What I did know was the truth: employees evade and ignore security policies!

The study is full of juicy statistics that prove this critical, bottom-line fact.

So, this week’s Tip of the Week is to use good technology to “beat” employees. Not physically (I am pretty sure that’s illegal). Rather, defeat them. I hate to foster an adversarial relationship, but if you set policies designed to protect your business, and the employees undermine them, then in the end you need to employ methods to ensure effective protection.

A big piece of the puzzle is to develop good relationships with employees–the study itself even indicates that as employee good-will rises, non-compliance decreases, as we might expect.

But don’t rely on warm fuzzies to protect your critical data. Use unobtrusive technology designed not to be seen, heard, or messed with by employees. MyLaptopGPS is certainly one example, and IronKey’s own products are more examples.

Think You Know What a Thief Would Do With Your Data?

Dan Yost — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:41:32 +0000

You might want to think again. An interesting article at SC Magazine points out the need to watch what thieves actually are doing with data, not just what we predict or expect them to be doing with it.

Fact is, a thief may be after your data for reasons entirely beyond what you’d expect. And this directly confronts the tendency of most individuals to say “no thief would be interested in my data.” Unfortunately, many businesses think the same way. Huge mistake.