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Andy Hansen – 3rd Sept ‘09

A COUNCIL has been ordered to tighten up its data security after the theft of a laptop containing personal information of 43,000 schoolchildren.

The un-encrypted laptop was taken from Progress House, in Wigan - HQ of the council’s children and young people’s services. It contained names, dates of birth, postcodes and ethnicities of Year 3 pupils and above at schools across the town. The computer - one of several stolen in January ‘09 from a locked office - also contained information about special educational needs, eligibility for free school meals and data on achievement in national curriculum assessments.

The council has now agreed to improve its security systems after an investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office found it was in breach of the Data Protection Act. A spokesman said the council had agreed to take immediate action. It has also emerged that the information had been downloaded to the laptop in breach of council policy.

The ICO spokesman said: “The laptop included personal details on most children and young people in Wigan’s schools. The information had been downloaded on to the laptop in breach of council policy.

“Although the laptop was stored in a locked office, the data was not protected as the laptop was not encrypted.

Data Breach

“The ICO found Wigan council in breach of the Data Protection Act and Joyce Redfearn, chief executive, has now signed a formal undertaking confirming that the organisation will take a number of steps to improve data security.”

Sally-Anne Poole, head of enforcement at the ICO, warned all organisations to take action to prevent data loss. She said: “I strongly advise organisations to avoid instances where employees can download large volumes of personal information.

“This incident could have been averted if the data was simply accessed from the main council computer network. Storing large volumes of personal information on portable devices is unnecessarily risky.

“If personal details fall into the wrong hands, individuals can experience considerable distress. It is vital that personal information is handled securely, especially where so many children and young people are concerned.

“I am pleased that the council has taken action to guard against security breaches of this nature.”

The ICO said the council had agreed to encrypt all portable and mobile computer devices. Staff will also receive extra training on council policy.

The council sent letters to thousands of families across Wigan after the theft at the offices, on Westwood Park Drive, was reported to police.

The M.E.N. reported that three offenders got in through the front door, despite the premises having a swipe card system.

Another clear example of the need for Data Vault Security ‘Sentry’ and ‘Backup’ within Government Bodies.

Failing with online backup

Michael Krigsman:

“Seeking to back up 350GB in safe, reliable, off-site storage, I tried Carbonite and Mozy, two of the most respected names in the offline backup market. Both products failed miserably to achieve my goals, each one in a perversely different way.”

READ FULL STORY AT ZDNET

My observations about this article are as follows:

You Get What You Pay For

Expecting a backup service that costs $5 per month to work for large scale data backup and restore is unrealistic. And 350GB of data is large scale. In these days of 1TB hard drives, people are becoming a little blase about shifting large quantities of data around. But the fact is, to reliably and securely backup this volume of data requires an enterprise grade solution.

Especially if you want to be 100% certain that you can recover your data when you need it.

Recoverability is Everything

Backing up data is only a necessary pre-condition for successful data recovery. Any service with an Internet connection and a big enough hard disk can receive your data as a ‘backup’ given enough bandwidth and time.

But its the ability to get your data back again should you ever be in the situation where that is 100% necessary and critical to the future of your business that is the determining factor in whether an online backup solution is effective or not.

There’s only one data backup service on the planet offering up to a $2,000,000 USD guarantee behind their capacity to restore your data to you.

That’s Data Vault Security.

Oxford, May 26, 2009 - A data loss at an RAF (Royal Air Force) base last year was far worse than first revealed after it emerged that sensitive files containing vetting data on RAF personnel was among the information that went missing.

Last September three USB sticks were stolen from the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency at RAF Innsworth. The agency provides support services for current and former RAF personnel. It was believed that tens of thousands of details were lost in the theft.

Now it has emerged that the files not only contained standard personal information such as names, bank accounts, national insurance numbers and addresses, but also very personal information used in vetting processes.

An internal MoD memo said that some files contained “details of criminal convictions, investigations, precise details of debt, medical conditions, drug abuse, use of prostitutes, extra-marital affairs including the names of third parties”.

The memo raised concerns that the sensitive data “provides excellent material for Foreign Intelligence Services and blackmailers”.

RAF officers and personnel could be publicly embarrassed by revelations in the files and could become the victims of extortion, bribery and blackmail if criminals threatened to expose past incidents.

There are now public concerns that the RAF’s slow acknowledgement of the vetting data loss could be seen as an attempted cover up. Neither parliament nor the Information Commissioner’s Office were told about the loss of the vetting data. Another excellent example of poor data security - Data Vault Security offer the very latest in Data Backup and Security. Furthermore, RSFA (remote secure file access) negates the need for the use of USB Sticks.

For 100GB of data:

Cost of a properly run data backup operation, using DLT’s as the backup media

Background:

• There are 2 major tape formats – DLT (Digital Linear Tape) and DDS (Digital Data Storage);
• DDS can store 20GB of data, and DLT can store 40GB of data.
• Best practice is that each DLT/DDS is only reliable for read purposes within the first 4 writes;
• DLT’s have over 50% failure rate if re-written more than 5 times; and
• Based on bulk purchasing, each DLT costs around A$50 and each DDS costs around A$20.

References:

• DLT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Linear_Tape
• DDS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Data_Storage
• Pricing for DLT http://www.tape4backup.com/93256.php
• Pricing for DDS http://www.supermediastore.com/ibm

Backup Cycles in a proper data operation:

• 31 daily tape groups – minus 5 weekly tape groups
• 5 weekly tape groups;
• 13 monthly tape groups;
• 2 yearly tape groups.

Using DLT, which is more common. Number of Tapes in total per year is 417:

• Daily 26 (days) x 3 (for 100GB) x 12 (months) / 3 (4 uses per tape before disposal) = 312 DLTs
• Weekly 5 (weeks, 4 in current month 1 in previous month) x 3 (for 100GB) x 12 / 3 = 60 DLTs
• Monthly 13 (months, 12 in current year, 1 in previous year) x 3 (for 100GB) x 1 (set for year) = 39 DLTs
• Yearly 2 (years, 1 for current year, 1 for previous year) x 3 (for 100GB) x 1 (set for year) = 6 DLTs

Total cost of running DLT’s for 100GB of data is $20,850.00 per year

Note: This is for the DLT media alone, does not include DLT tape backup unit, plus operators etc.

Contrast this with Data Vault Security.

100GB costs $3.21 per month per GB(100 x $3.21 x 12) = $3,852.00 per year

What happens to the costs when the amount of data to be backed up grows to 130GB?

The number of DLT’s per cycle (Daily/Weekly/Monthly/Yearly) grows to 4. Therefore:

• Daily 26 (days) x 4 (for 130GB) x 12 (months) / 3 (4 uses per tape before disposal) = 416 DLTs
• Weekly 5 (weeks, 4 in current month 1 in previous month) x 4 (for 130GB) x 12 / 3 = 80 DLTs
• Monthly 13 (months, 12 in current year, 1 in previous year) x 4 (for 130GB) x 1 (set for year) = 42 DLTs
• Yearly 2 (years, 1 for current year, 1 for previous year) x 4 (for 130GB) x 1 (set for year) = 8 DLTs

Total cost of running DLTs for 130GB of data is $27,300.00 per year, because DLT usage has grown to 546.

Contrast this with Data Vault Security.

130GB costs $3.21 per month per GB (130 x $3.21 x 12) = $5,007.60 per year

For further details and to set up your FREE test account, please contact Bradley C Hughes at DataBackupSecure.com, your international Data Vault Security Representative

Secure Data Backup Services has selected Data Vault Security as our preferred supplier of secure online data backup services.

After extensive analysis of the various secure online data backup services available on the Internet and careful consideration of the relative merits of the various service providers, we are pleased to announce that we have selected Data Vault Security as our preferred supplier.

The following considerations guided our decision.

Service compatibility with all major operating systems:

• Mac OSX
• Windows
• Unix

Service features:

* Up to 250 Computers on one account
* Unrestricted backup speed
* Military Style Configurable Encryption (AES / 3DES / 2FISH)
* Advanced Backup Scheduling (Daily / Weekly / Monthly)
* Archiving - Advanced retention policies
* In-File Delta
* Open Files / Volume Shadow Copy
* Live Vault / Real time backup
* Backup External Devices – NAS drives etc.
* Remote Secure File Access – ‘Leave your laptop at home’ technology
* Automatic File Integrity Management System
* Password Protected Configuration
* 100gb plus Quick Start Backup Service
* Operating Systems Backup

Service guarantee:

up to $2,000,000 US dollar guarantee of 100% data recoverability