You keep using this word...

[venta]

The BBC says:

"The computers were taken from a locked cabinet in a secure room at St George's Hospital in Tooting, in June."

Surely, by definition, they were not taken from a secure room.

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Surely, by definition, they were not taken from a secure room.

The room itself didn't get stolen. They're counting that as a win.

[hughe.livejournal.com]

the records were password protected and the postcodes were hidden apparently.

I'm not sure where they were hidden. maybe they were hidden under the bed.

password protecting a laptop only stops someone logging onto it. if the laptop itself is taken thats not going to stop the data being taken off the disk directly...

[dr-mitch.livejournal.com]

Interesting (or not) story. I moved into a new office at work last week, and the best arrangement was for me to use the computer used by the previous occupant rather than get a new one. The problem- I didn't know the password.

The computer officer came with me to an office with a disk with which we could reset the passwords on the machine. He said it had taken his colleague ten minutes to find a relevant program on the net.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, there's a whole other bunch of security issues with putting stuff on computers.

I was just amused; to me, a secure room is one from which things cannot be stolen. Therefore, the laptops were taken from a room formerly believed to be secure.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, I did wonder what they meant about postcodes being 'hidden'. I'd have guessed they meant encrypted, only I'm not sure I trust these people to mean anything other than "we didn't put them in a file called Personal Postcodes.doc".

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Or 'they weren't in Desktop like all the other sensitive personal data'.

[hughe.livejournal.com]

maybe they used a white font on a white background...

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I'd trust neither journalists (who are largely incompetent) nor the hospital PR people (who have an interest in playing down the how serious it is) to convey accurate information about how the data was protected.

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

In addition to which, if the data is protected in a vaguely useful fashion that the thieves might have actual trouble with, publicising the details would be less than ideal behaviour.... (cf the famous case of the Argentine bombs in the Falklands, although that was really slightly more complex than it tends to be portrayed as being.)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Also: "we could not anticipate a determined thief who was prepared to force open a filing cabinet and locked drawers to get to the laptops"

Because people who break into buildings to steal valuables never anticipate the valuable things being in feebly locked containers, as any fule who's been burgled kno.

[octalbunny.livejournal.com]

Minister, if we had anticipated it we would have had to do something about it. We didn't have the budget to anticipate it.

[condign.livejournal.com]

I'm with bateleur. The room itself was very secure. Now if the article described it as "a room with a secure interior," it would be doubtlessly wrong.