Ministry of Defence 'loses' 60 laptops

[BEagle]

From the Sunday Mirror - which I don't normally read, but found a link to the story from elsewhere:

60 MoD laptops, 45 memory sticks and four computers went missing in 2017 as well as ammunition and explosives.

More at https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ministry-defence-loses-60-laptops-13213484

[friartuck]

Astounded it's so low... they must be rubbish equipment

A mate in IT told me that in 2014 BP had +12,000 laptops out there - many with contractors/consultants. And they weren't that bothered if they ever turned up - in fact it would be an embarrassment as they were written off when purchased, and would be 12-60 months old if they came back. The cost of cleaning them (physically & electronically) and updating was far more than they were worth.

All they did was to turn off people's access to the corporate data base and send them a nice message reminding them any data they had should be destroyed and was still confidential.

[Harley Quinn]

And cue yet another round of incessant in-house IT awareness training for everyone within the organisation. Much better to place the emphasis on the user when they take control of the device rather than waste the time of everybody who will not be using one of these things.

[Davef68]

Only 45 memory sticks suggests IT awareness is pretty good - they are an absolute pain in the bum from a data security point of view. Fantastic things for transferring your photos from one computer to another, rubbish for sensitive data as they WILL be lost. I can see their use in environemnts where you don't have network access, but hopefully they will have been encrypted properly (Same goes for the laptops as well)

I do wonder if they are 'MOD' losses rather than 'military' losses

[tucumseh]

Memory sticks? All USB ports were disabled. Only one external optical drive per Directorate, kept under lock and key. In 1993 we were told we'd 'lost' 3 or 4 laptops. No we haven't, it's 14. And they're not lost. They've been cannibalised for spares and in any case they were classified as consumable. Common sense prevailed. Same situation at DRA/DERA. Handed out like confetti, even to consultants, and quietly forgotten when they became QinetiQ. I know one chap who has kept his all these years just in case. Remember Windows 3.11 on 33 floppies?

[Just This Once...]

It is an impressively low figure given the amount of IT used in dynamic and unfriendly environments.

I hope the MoD has eased-up on the ridiculous investigations when IT is 'lost'. I suffered a few of these daft MoD / Service police investigations when 'lost' included machines blown-to-pieces, or terminally damaged laptops where the HDD has been saved, recovered and sitting on my desk or occasions where we have been ordered to destroy system drives.

[Bing]

Memory sticks? All USB ports were disabled. Only one external optical drive per Directorate, kept under lock and key. In 1993 we were told we'd 'lost' 3 or 4 laptops. No we haven't, it's 14. And they're not lost. They've been cannibalised for spares and in any case they were classified as consumable. Common sense prevailed. Same situation at DRA/DERA. Handed out like confetti, even to consultants, and quietly forgotten when they became QinetiQ. I know one chap who has kept his all these years just in case. Remember Windows 3.11 on 33 floppies?

I'm pretty sure in 1993 all the USB ports would have been disabled by not having been designed yet!

[tucumseh]

Bing

Correct! That'll teach me to start a new paragraph.
We had some laptops in 93/94. We didn't get networked desktop computers until 1996. The latter were disabled. In 93 we had a few 286s or 386s, bought if I recall from a recently retired RN Chief turned computer salesman. Just before the move to Shabbeywood in 96, we were asked if we wanted to take the old ones, including huge laser printers, home. I guess most of them were just binned eventually, with no accounting.
I wonder who lies awake at night thinking up these questions. A couple of years ago a parliamentary committee reported the Army had lost rafts of BOWMAN radios. Shock horror. Probably all quietly forgotten when it was pointed out that when some users got the radios, they chucked them away as they already had something two generations newer.

[Pontius Navigator]

We had a couple of consultants who came and set up the local end of the station network. Come Friday afternoon they departed leaving two towers behind. Monday no sign of them. Never saw them again. Rang Command IT - thinks bulbble.

I stripped out the HDD and locked them away. Not long after all the local machines around the station, about 12, were all replaced. Again no instructions. I stripped their HDD and boxed up the lot. Went to the Registry and posted the lot back to Command. Not a peep from the other end.

Yes, old Secret kit is a PITA.

[Lima Juliet]

sparking fears our highly sensitive secrets might be for sale on the dark web.

What a load of s-h-1-t-e from the Mirror. At best this would be the sensitive end of OFFICIAL. Ther are only three classifications and that is OFFICIAL, SECRET and TOP SECRET - everything else is an extra caveat - https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/715778/May-2018_Government-Security-Classifications-2.pdf

Secret laptops are as rare as hens’ teeth and so I am 99.9999% none of the laptops or memory sticks are even SECRET. So what of OFFICIAL, I can work on that stuff on my own personal laptop, even the sensitive end as long as I follow the rules for doing so.

This is the definition of OFFICIAL “The majority of information that is created or processed by the public sector. This includes routine business operations and services, some of which could have damaging consequences if lost, stolen or published in the media, but are not subject to a heightened threat profile.”. This is what it

This story from the Sunday Mirror is not even worthy of wrapping my fish and chip supper...