Network Endpoint Security News - Watch Your End

Two top executives of a major Korean electric power business illegally brought more than $1.8 billion in trade secrets with them when they joined a rival company earlier this year, according to Korea Times. Two high-ranking officers at STX Heavy Industries were arrested earlier this month on charges of stealing key technology data from their former employer, Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction.

The accused allegedly took about 900 documents — including blueprints of Doosan’s electric power generation and desalination plants — by copying them onto USB ports “for some time” while he was employed there, prosecutors said.

The value of the technological know-how leaked by the two to STX could be at least 1.7 trillion won — more than $1.8 billion dollars.

Following the data loss debacle at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in the UK, the government has admitted that it will consider revising the 1998 Data Protection Act in an effort to ensure such a large-scale security breach does not happen again.

The Ministry of Justice has now confirmed that the review - to be carried out by information commissioner Richard Thomas and Mark Walport, director of medical research charity the Wellcome Trust - will consider whether there should be changes to the way the Data Protection Act works.

The incident has also prompted calls for a review of proposed information sharing legislation, which would enable government agencies to share more data about UK citizens.

Think a 1.44Mb floppy is too small to do any harm? Think again. According to ITV’s Formula One site, a former McLaren engineer used 11 disks to transfer 33 files to rival Renault’s computer systems. McLaren alleges that the files (which mathematics tells us could not have totalled more than 16Mb) was equivalent to an entire technical blueprint of their 2006 and 2007 racing cars.

Formula One has had more than its fair share of spying controversy this year, highlighting the ease with which employees can access and transfer data beyond the corporate network.

Employees and private individuals are creating a massive security risk by mislaying their mobile devices at airports, claims a new study.

The major London airports reported the biggest haul of gadgets, where more than 400 laptops and 2,500 other mobile devices are lost annually. People using airports in the northwest of England are misplacing more than 100 laptops and 800 mobile gadgets a year.

Apparently, the Germans are more careful. Even so, nearly 800 laptops are left in German airports every year, and more than 2,500 mobile devices are lost over the same period.

A University of Nevada, Reno professor has lost a flash drive that contained the names and Social Security numbers of 16,000 current and former students, according to the University. A spokesperson confirmed that the flash drive contained the information of incoming freshmen who enrolled in the fall semesters from 2001 through 2007.

The flash drive, which is about the size of a thumb, was lost somewhere in downtown Reno on October 19. The professor involved has not been identified by the University; nor has the institution announced why the professor was in possession of Social Security numbers.

There has been no statement from University of Nevada to suggest that the memory stick had any security measures (e.g. encryption or biometrics) to protect the data stored on it.