14 DAY TRIAL // A few days ago, representatives of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) revealed that a laptop containing the personal details of “some” employees was stolen from a staffer’s locked car. The device was password protected, but the data stored on it was not encrypted.
NASA representatives told Computerworld that the incident was kept secret because during this time the agency was working with law enforcement to recover the laptop and precisely assess the extent of the breach.
It turns out that the personal information of at least 10,000 employees is stored on the missing computer.
Following the incident, NASA is determined to ensure that, by this Christmas, full disk encryption is set in place on all the agency’s laptops. In the meantime, employees are banned from removing work laptops from the facility.