UK newspaper, the Daily Mail, has revealed that a police officer in the West Midlands has lost a 4GB memory stick reported containing top-secret information on terror suspects. The device was lost when the officer took the device on patrol.
At least one property has been raided in the search for the lost USB stick, but so far it has not been found.
Although police would not confirm it, the newspaper believes the device held information on a number of suspected terrorist cells being monitored by police.
There is no word - and hence nothing to suggest that the data held on the USB was encrypted, meaning that anyone who now has the device has access to some potentially highly-sensitive data. The security breach is serious enough that the UK Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith has been informed.
This is yet another high-profile example of how allowing sensitive data to be copied to inherently insecure devices, with no security precautions, can be a seriously risky practice.
