Greater Manchester Police have warned that sensitive information about an ongoing criminal investigation was contained on a USB memory stick stolen from an officer’s home in Oldham, UK.
The officer has been suspended, pending an investigation, and the matter has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Information Commissioner.
One big question which has to be answered is – was the personal data contained on the USB stick encrypted?
According to the BBC News report, it may not have been password-protected suggesting that encryption was not being used.
Aside from the issue of whether such sensitive data about an investigation should be left at an officer’s home in the first place, why isn’t encryption being used as a matter of course to ensure that – even if the…
Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.
Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter or Mastodon to read more of the exclusive content we post.
