Federal departments consider banning USB keys in wake of dozens of security breaches
From: National Post (Canada)
A USB key handed out to an employee in the federal department that helps Canadian companies compete for domestic and foreign security contracts vanished early in 2013.
A week-long trail of emails, phone calls led security officials to conclude it was “impossible to assess [the] compromise” related to the loss of the device. Nor was it clear who was telling the truth about the number of hands the one small device passed through: Employees pointed fingers at each other, with none knowing where the USB key ended up.
Another USB key that was neither password protected nor encrypted was found on a downtown Ottawa sidewalk by a Good Samaritan. It contained protected information — albeit out-of-date details — of a federal project.
The two instances are among dozens of security incidents logged by Public Works and Government Services Canada over the past year in the capital, which has the largest slice proportionally of public servants in the country. The USB key losses are two of four investigated in 2013 by Public Works, not including the six lost BlackBerry phones, two lost laptops and the possible theft of an iPad.
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