Re: Tax website shut down as memory stick with secret personal data of 12million is found in a pub car park

[Jim Murray <jim () digitaldaemons co uk>]

If it wasn't gov.uk this would be unbeleivable. Sadly this level of data
security is fast becoming normal for them.

Obviously they are far too busy building new super-databases to bother
securing the ones they aready have.

I suppose this is the end result of 'competitive tendering'.. pay
peanuts, get monkeys.

Jim.

Juha-Matti Laurio wrote:
> "Ministers have been forced to order an emergency shutdown of a key Government computer system to protect millions of 
> people's private details.
>
> The action was taken after a memory stick was found in a pub car park containing confidential passcodes to the online 
> Government Gateway system,
> which covers everything from tax returns to parking tickets.
>
> An urgent investigation is now under way into how the stick, belonging to the company which runs the flagship system, 
> came to be lost.
>
> The lost memory stick was found two weeks ago outside a Brewers Fayre chain pub in Cannock, Staffordshire, but the 
> Department of Work and Pensions,
> which owns the Government Gateway, was made aware of its loss only last week when the 2in device was passed to this 
> newspaper.
>
> An expert who examined it for The Mail on Sunday said it contained confidential passwords, security software and the 
> technical blueprint to the system known as the 'source code'.
> The memory stick is now in the hands of the police."
> --clip--

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