Public bodies and organisations should really stop using USB sticks for important data. In fact, such bodies should not allow their staff to take anything out of offices, for fear it might get stolen, lost, dropped or just left behind somewhere. As in fact, a USB stick recently was – dropped that is.

A member of the public found the USB on a pavement in Manchester, not far from the police station. When the USB was plugged in, the man found over 2,000 pages of unencrypted data with anti-terrorist training manuals and sensitive information on it. It also contained details of police personnel, which could have been used by terrorists to target officers who were involved in anti-terror fields.

Sad as it is to say, IT security just isn’t what it used to be!