A Look At Gov't Data Losses
The U.S. government says it's lost -- yes, lost -- an entire hard drive full of sensitive data. The external drive, stored at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, held personal data from the Clinton era, including information about White House staff and visitors and electronic storage tapes from the Executive Office of the President.
Thu, May 21, 2009
PC World — The U.S. government says it's lost -- yes, lost -- an entire hard drive full of sensitive data. The external drive, stored at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, held personal data from the Clinton era, including information about White House staff and visitors and electronic storage tapes from the Executive Office of the President.
How to Minimize the Impact of a Data Breach
Unfortunately, this isn't the first flub-up we've seen when it comes to seemingly dumb data mistakes by major government agencies. In fact, there have been several winners since just last year. Here, then, are our top four government data blunders of recent months, starting with this week's National Archives revelation.
4. The National Archives' Hard Drive Disappearance
The National Archives' hard drive contained an "as yet unknown" amount of data, the office says. Home addresses and Social Security numbers are believed to be a part of the information. Some reports even suggest personal details about one of Al Gore's daughters could be included, as could details about Secret Service security procedures used during the Clinton years.
The thing's apparently been missing since April, even though it was just announced today. Most flummoxing, though, is the fact that quoted officials say it may have been "accidentally misplaced." Right -- because a government hard drive with this type of data doesn't deserve, I don't know, maybe just an extra shred of caution when it comes to its handling.
Welcome to the list, National Archives.
3. The TSA's Lost-Then-Found Fumble
The Transportation Security Administration: protectors of our skies; guard gates of our...well, gates. Surely, an agency charged with keeping airports safe would know a thing or two about security. Right?
Not necessarily. Time to rewind back to last summer, when the TSA announced one of its checkpoint laptops from the San Francisco airport was missing. The PC was used to control a "fast-pass" security prescreening program and held unencrypted personal info on 33,000 passengers.
The media was notified, a full investigation was launched, and the prescreening program was sent into partial lockdown. A week later, the TSA found the laptop -- wait for it -- in its own office. Top-notch.
The TSA also, by the way, lost an external hard drive with employee data in 2007 and "maybe" mailed about 1,200 former workers' Social Security numbers and birth dates to random people a year before that.
2. The U.S. Military's eBay Embarrassment
MEMO: Do not sell old hard drives containing sensitive military information on eBay. *
