According to a recent survey, in the last six months alone, Londoners have forgotten a staggering 55,843 mobile phones (that’s almost 3 per taxi) and 6,193 other handheld devices such as laptops, iPods and memory sticks
Many of these devices now have the capacity to store as much as 10,000 Word documents, 11,000 pictures, 500,000 contact details or an amazing 1.1 million emails, making them an obvious target for identity theft criminals and hackers who can steal this information and assume the identity of the user both in their personal or business life.
posted by akuma @ September 18, 2008 8:04 am
A consultant for PA Consulting copied files containing records on all 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales onto a USB drive, which then got lost.
Although the government does actually have rather strict rules about how such data should be stored and managed, and downloading it from secure servers onto thumbdrives or CDs isn’t allowed, but the fact that it keeps happening suggests that either no one is paying attention, or that the procedures for handling sensitive data aren’t working.
posted by akuma @ September 17, 2008 10:07 am
Another great post on LaptopTheft.org regarding how to crack BIOS passwords. The first part of the series discusses backdoor passwords from manufacturers. It provides a list of common passwords from most major manufacturers.
Once you are able to crack the BIOS password you can easily enable the BIOS to allow you to boot from a CD or even a flash drive where you can then load OphCrack to crack the password. Still think your laptop is secure?
posted by akuma @ September 7, 2008 11:59 pm
An interesting post on how to hack laptop passwords, many of the tools listed can be booted from a USB thumb drive. Discusses how to hack Windows, OS X and Linux. Password protecting a laptop provides a false sense of security, it will help someone from accessing the data on your device while it is at your desk or a coffee shop, but if it is stolen and a thief has the time he can crack it quite easily using these open source and commercial tools.
posted by akuma @ September 6, 2008 1:02 pm
