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A consultant’s report (http://bit.ly/8Y0y0c) on the theft of four
laptops at St Albans council - in which the details of more than
14,500 postal voters went walkabout - has highlighted continuing
lapses on the security front, says Origin Storage, the storage systems
integration specialist.

"The theft of the laptops caused an uproar, but the report from Socitm
has identified that staff are still being lax on data security,
despite the fact that other security procedures have been tightened
up," said Andy Cordial, Origin’s managing director.

"Local press notes about the report make for interesting reading, not
least because, although staff are physically locking hardware to their
desks, and portable device data is being encrypted, employees are
still taking a poor approach to security generally, such as sharing
their passwords," he added.

According to Cordial, whose company supplies portable data security
systems with multiple layers of defence to clients, using encryption
is only part of the equation when it comes to protecting data.

As reports in the security press have revealed, it’s all to easy to
lose the encryption key along with the laptop (http://bit.ly/bYWItx)
and, as IT analyst agency Quocirca reported last July, companies must
take better control of their critical information and use all possible
methods to prevent information falling into the wrong hands should a
device be lost or stolen.

That report (http://bit.ly/blGJSn), the Origin Storage MD went on to
say, concluded that there are significant productivity gains to be
generated through the ease of good administration and management when
it comes to protecting data in transit.

"Multi-layered data systems - such as the Datalocker device
(http://bit.ly/2vb6y9) we recently introduced, and which defends data
using PIN and encryption technologies - are now the best option for
organisations wanting an easy to use portable data security system,"
he said.

"When added to other security procedures such as positive staff
vetting for employees handling private data, the multi-layered defence
strategy starts to make sense - especially if how the layers work are
easy for understand, as well as use, for the employees concerned," he
added.