A LARGE scale disaster waiting to happen – Government allowing employees to use USB’s or Government not ensuring their data is encrypted?

Recent media coverage has highlighted some major embarrassing data loses across the public sector all of which could have been avoided if they had used an encrypted means of data storage – yes they technically would still have lost the data, but it would have been of no value to anyone else had it of been encrypted, the data would have been safe – lost or stolen the public would have been protected.

The Government now have procedures in place to ensure data is more adeptly protected, these policies do however fall short in educating the people that need to use them; as a whole the Government needs to step up to the mark and educate their people against the repercussions of losing confidential data.

Encrypted USB’s are in my view the basic necessity to “data safety” survival; as a bare minimum encrypted USB’s ensure data can only be accessed by password, encryption software ensures files can not be tampered with, port blocking also allows for a detailed audit trail of when data is removed or stored and can also disarm the ability for users to remove data onto any unauthorised devices. In the event the USB is lost or stolen, repeated attempts to gain access to the information by entering the incorrect password will result in the encryption software’s cryptokey being destroyed; this renders the data unrecoverable.

One of our core objectives as a company this year is to educate as many organisations as possible about the necessity to protect all data not just the more sensitive information the Government are privileged to have access to. With the demonstration of encryption and data storage solutions I personally believe that the correct message can ensure we no longer fall victim to data loss through poor education.

Lianne Denness, Hypertec, hypertec.co.uk