Text 20343, 36 rader
Skriven 2006-08-13 10:11:58 av Jeff Guerdat (1:275/311)
     Kommentar till en text av Alan Zisman
Ärende: Re: Old HD.
===================
Alan Zisman wrote:

> It's bad enough if it's YOUR data... what really strikes me about every
> one of the cases recently publicized of large amounts of personal
> information data gone missing on stolen laptops is that it probably
> shouldn't have been on the hard drive in the first place.
> 
> I haven't heard a single justification for keeping vast lists of
> personal information on a laptop hard drive.
> 
> What bank or VA employee really needs to be doing work involving a
> database with thousands of clients at home or from a remote location?
> And if they REALLY need access to that data, why aren't they getting it
> via a secure virtual private network?
> 
> All these organizations need to have firm policies in effect to ensure
> that employees are not walking around with client's personal information
> on laptops... and clients whose information was put at risk in this way
> should be filing class-action suits to penalize the organizations--
> private and government-- who allow representatives of their
> organizations to be so careless with personal information.

While I agree with you 100%, it's also worth noting that 1) permission 
HAD been granted for the VA laptop and had been for a couple of years 
and 2) the state of technology has changed, what with terminal servers, 
encryption, etc.  There's also procedures in place that provide the 
needed data with dummy info that isn't important to the task other than 
to have the field filled properly.

These days, a VPN used to connect to a terminal server would be FAR 
preferable to having data offsite.  This needs to be implemented ASAP. 
The hard part, of course, is ensuring that the data isn't being removed 
anyways.  Physical access to the data (laptop, CD, USB thumb drive, 
etc.) makes security useless if in the wrong hands.
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