Laptop losses seems to be a never ending parade. Things have gone from “Hey did you hear about…” to “Wow, another laptop?” to finally “E&Y lost how many?” Now, we’ve all heard about the VA laptop theft soap opera but, it appears that the US Department of Transportation had t get in on the act as well. Over on Security Monkey’s blog we find this:
Not to be outdone by the incredible incompetence of The Veterans Administration (read more about it here and here), the Department of Transportation has announced that it too has lost a laptop.
No, I’m not making this up. (Thanks to reader EJ for sending this my way this morning!)
According to MSNBC, the laptop was taken from a government vehicle in Doral, Florida, back on July 27.
The laptop contains approximately 133,000 drivers’ and pilots’ records INCLUDING SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS.
OK, I’ve ranted about laptop encryption before and we’ve heard the likes of Bruce Potter say that’s not feasible to do laptop encryption on 10,000 laptops for an enterprise. Well, I ask this question. What is the solution to this problem? How do we get to a point where a stolen laptop is a non issue (save the financial loss)? Do we rig mobile devices with C4 and when they go beyond a certain perimeter they’re detonated (a la The Running Man)? What is a plausible solution?
[tags]DOT, Laptop Theft, Data Security, Stolen Laptop, Social Security Numbers[/tags]
