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Leicester unloses key data

Lost USB found in a lunch box

Cloud based data management

Leicester City Council has found the USB stick containing key codes for several thousand vulnerable residents' front doors.

The stick went missing in mid-March and contained key codes to open boxes outside the homes of users of the council's care service which contained front door keys. The council changed several thousand codes as a precaution.

But it has now found the missing USB stick, in a member of staff's lunch bag.

The council told This is Leicestershire: "We have continued our search for the missing data stick and, as a result, can confirm that it was found over the weekend. As soon the data stick had been recovered, we ran a series of tests on it which indicated that the data on it has not been accessed during the period the device was missing.

"We are continuing with our investigation into the incident and will report fully on its findings as soon as this has been completed."

Leicester City Council had informed the Information Commissioner's Office of its gaffe, presumably the council can now share the good news. ®

Cloud based data management

Please help calibrate my BS meter

"we ran a series of tests on it which indicated that the data on it has not been accessed during the period the device was missing."

Is this actually possible? It sounds like the just the kind of BS an organisation comes out with to provide some reassurance to an unquestioning idiocracy.

Of course, I could be being unfair...

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"We ran a series of tests...."

Translation: We looked at the "Last Access Time" file attribute and hoped it wasn't accessed by someone who knew how to reset it - or how to avoid modifying it in the first place - or who used a decent raw copy utility - or, or, or.....

Obviously the key wasn't securely encrypted in the first place, otherwise there would be no panic.

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Genuine question

Genuine question - educate me! How do you check if data has been accessed?

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