Top Secret Brit Laptop Stolen

The theft of lap­tops with ‘top secret’ gov­ern­ment and mil­i­tary data has become a punch-​​line in the UK.

There were 28 lap­tops lost or stolen in the last four months and 66 in total since January 1, 2009. Looking back over the last 4 years there were 658 that van­ished. A major hunt is now on in London after a lap­top crammed with secret data was stolen from inside the Ministry of Defense (MoD) nerve cen­ter. FROM THEIR HEADQUARTERS!

How embar­rass­ing taken from right under the noses of the MoD lead­er­ship in Whitehall. If the theft of the lap­top was not bad enough, the USB type encryp­tion key needed to unlock the highly sen­si­tive files was also taken. The loss was said to have occurred toward the end of November but news of the event did not leak out until late last week and was not con­firmed until ear­lier this week.

The lap­top was said to belong to a high-​​ranking RAF offi­cer. One agency is report­ing that a source inside MoD stated, “This has the poten­tial to become one of the most seri­ous secu­rity breaches at the Ministry for a very long time.” A spokesman for the MoD said that “an inves­ti­ga­tion by MoD police is ongo­ing and it would be inap­pro­pri­ate to com­ment further.”

I won­der if any­one told the MoD that you can equip your lap­tops with GPS and have your lap­top phone home and even delete sen­si­tive data?

FACT: The cur­rent MoD bud­get is 36,702 million

FACT: MoDs prin­ci­pal objec­tives are to defend the United Kingdom and its inter­ests and to strengthen inter­na­tional peace and stability

FACT: In 2006 on aver­age one in ten lap­tops were stolen.