The Ministry of Defence announced yesterday that details about SAS soldiers has gone missing after a laptop without encryption went missing during a recent exercise in Britain.The laptop (similar to that above) was being used by the Signals Regiment, who are attached to the elite force based in Hereford. The discovery of the missing laptop was revealed by Military chiefs during a routine audit kit check, who also identified that details of top secret anti-terror training exercises were contained on the PC, and it is believed to hold information about the names of personnel taking part.
Sources have revealed that the computer holds sensitive information about the military and counter-terrorism manoeuvres within the Signals Regiment. In a statement, the source, who cannot be named for reasons of security, has added that "the soldier in charge of the computer is panicking. It is very embarrassing because keeping tabs on kit is the most important part of working with the SAS."
The Ministry of Defence have insisted that the missing laptop does not hold information about operations or details of weapons. A spokesman from the MoD has given a press statement revealing the opening of an inquiry into the possible theft of the computer and has also added "We can confirm that we are investigating the possible loss of a hard drive, containing only unclassified information which was being used on a training exercise." The spokesman then added, "We are carrying out our inquiries into what happened."
After the loss of many laptops last year, realisation that the British Parliament and the Ministry of Defence should put better enforcement in to place, or actually follow what they have promised to implement into their data security for the last four years. Whilst promising to fortify the measures of security, the MoD information is said to be protected and encrypted. However, it came to light that the Ministry of Defence loses around 15 laptops per month, through the loss or theft of computers and laptops.
At the beginning of October 2008, the UK Minstry of Defence acknowledged that three hard drives containing personal data of over 50,000 current and former Royal Air Force service personnel had been stolen on the 17th of September from a "double-secured" area of the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency's offices at Innsworth Station, Gloucestershire. These were also believed not to be encrypted, as the MoD had placed them in a supposedly secure facility.
Another investigation then was launched a week later, after the MoD acknowledged another loss of a hard drive, this time by the contractor EDS (now a Hewlett-Packard company), providers of IT services through the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Ministry of Justice and the MoD. The hard drive lossed in this instance contained data on 100,000 members of the Britsih armed forces, including the details of next of kins, passport and National Insurance numbers, drivers' licence and bank details and NHS numbers. The hard drive also held the details of 600,000 potential recruits, including their names, addresses, date of birth and telephone numbers of the applicants. The details given by the MoD on the loss of the hard drive revealed a concerning uncertainty to whether the data had been encrypted.
On the 14th October, the Ministry of Defence admitted yet another lost computer. The lost drive's data held not "just" 600,000 potential recruits, but 1.7 million of them. In addition to this, the Mod also worryingly confessed that they were faily certain, like the other losses over the last 6 months, that this computer was not encrypted.
Although the Mod have insisted that the latest of data losses did not contain the details of the o
perations or weapons within the SAS, Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox said that the loss was "deeply concerning". He expressed this in a further statement: "Any loss of data of this nature is deeply concerning, especially if there are security implications." The Defence Secretary then went on to say, "We will want to know the full picture from the Ministry of Defence as soon as possible to ensure that neither civilians nor military personnel are at risk."
