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High Ranking Royal Air Force Laptop Stolen From the Ministry of Defense

Justin Kerr — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:24:38 -0600

Losing a laptop full of travel photos and bookmarks hurts, but losing the laptop and USB decryption key for a high-ranking Royal Air Force officer stings just a tiny bit more. Great Britain authorities are on the hunt for suspects in a high profile laptop theft, but you might be surprised to learn that it is but one of 66 so far this year, bringing the grand total up to 658 machines in the past four years.

I’m not sure whats worse, the fact that top-secret information is contained on mobile computers at all, or that the thief managed to sneak it out of the Ministry of Defense, an ultra secure government facility without anybody noticing. “This has the potential to become one of the most serious security breaches at the Ministry for a very long time” said a spokesman for the MoD. “An investigation by the MoD police is ongoing and it would be inappropriate to comment further”.

According to Intel stolen laptops cost companies almost $50,000 per year, per machine, so I don’t even want to speculate on what a laptop full of “top secret” government data would fetch. I suppose the only consolation is the fact that so many are stolen, I doubt anything contained on the laptop was still a secret anyway.

GPS tracking? Biometric readers? Anyone else have a few suggestions for these guys? Clearly they need them.

Conficker Worm Shuts Down French and UK Air Forces

Mark Edward Soper — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:51:47 -0600

The London Telegraph reports that the Conficker (aka Downadup and Kido) worm virtually shut down both the French naval air force and Great Britain's RAF and Royal Navy for some time last month.

Ironically, the French had been warned as far back as October to harden their systems, but as we reported last month, millions of PCs haven't yet been protected by installing KB958644. As with other infections, the culprit appears to have been an infected USB flash memory key, and the infection prevented the French Navy's Rafael multi-role combat aircraft from being flown for several days in mid-January. The non-secured Intramar French navy computer network was also infected - users of Intramar were even told not to use their PCs!

Across the English Channel, the British were having problems of their own with a variant of Conficker. The Fujitsu-supplied NavyStar (N*) email and computer support system was the target of the outbreak. More than 24 RAF bases and 75% of the Royal Navy fleet, including the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, were infected by Conficker.

Any idea why the IT managers forgot to protect their systems? What about the possibility that an attack like this could be the first wave of a major war? Hit Comment and tell us what you think (or fear).

Maximum PC Royal Air Force RSS Feed

High Ranking Royal Air Force Laptop Stolen From the Ministry of Defense

Conficker Worm Shuts Down French and UK Air Forces

French Naval Aviation and RAF roundels courtesy Wikimedia Commons. USB flash drives image courtesy BBC.