This bites! 22 April 2008
Yesterday I received a letter in the post informing me that I’m one of the people affected by the latest data loss snafu.
Boots is the latest company to be embarrassed by the loss of confidential information after a drug addict stole a back-up tape with details of customers to whom the company had sold dental insurance. Boots is blaming Medisure, the insurer, which is blaming the security firm that was transporting the tape. No one is saying much more, and the whereabouts of the tape, or indeed why it should have attracted the interest of an opportunistic thief, is unclear. The thief was caught on CCTV. The pharmacist and the insurer have written to an unspecified number of customers reassuring them that the data, including dates of birth and bank account details, are inaccessible without specialist machinery. As The Register, the online IT magazine, points out acidly: “That’s all right then, because surely there are no ties between thieves in this country and hackers in, for example, the former Soviet bloc?”
Story from The Times.
Fings wot I fot:
- I left the dental plan three years ago. Isn’t a bit strange to keep old customer records live on servers and backed up every night for that long?
- Tape? Backup? TAPE?
- “Specialist machinery” - like a 1994 Packard Bell from Sears.
- It can’t have been that secure of a security vehicle.
- What does tape smell like when you light it to inhale the fumes?
Hi Heather
It’s completely normal to use high-capacity tape for backing up large systems: cost-effective, stable, and easy to rotate and store, so there’s nothing odd about that. I suspect by “specialist machinery” they simply mean an easily available DAT drive and appropriate software though
What is odd is what a drug addict thought s/he might use it for!
Regards
Veronica
Well looking at my web stats, it seems like the dental plan’s parent company is very, very interested in what sort of press and buzz this story is getting; I have had hits from multiple offices and multiple locations.
It’s a shame that they can’t pay as much attention to their security as they do to their marketing; on the other hand, I have shared sour grapes about many companies on this blog, and they are the first among them to google the blogosphere.
I think compensation is in order. Say, Boots Advantage points. Thousands and thousands and thousands of them, redeemable at the Chanel counter.