[Dataloss] time to name names (was Re: MORE BNY (Mellon Corp) Tapeslost)

[V.]

At 07:30 PM 6/6/2008 -0400, DAIL, WILLARD A wrote:
>Aside from the privacy issue, couriered tapes  are also a concern 
>due to the "Crash Restart" method of system attack.
>Basically, a hacker colludes with your courier to drop off your 
>tapes in the morning.  The courier then picks up the altered tapes 
>that afternoon.  A couple of really nasty things happened to your 
>tapes that day.
<snip>

In addition to the scenario outlined in Mr. Dail's post, imagine your 
tapes (or laptops) make an unauthorized stop just to be copied.  Not 
so far fetched, and in many cases this type of loss would remain an 
unknown occurrence.  All it requires is a payoff to someone -- the 
courier, or the custodian of the data.

Almost everyone has a price; if bribed with enough money, many people 
will find they can't resist.  Most identity loss is probably due to 
negligence and/or apathy, but collusion is a possibility which must 
be considered and investigated in many cases.  If a courier is 
offered a large amount of cash to wait just a very few minutes while 
someone copies a hard disk, how many couriers could say no?  While 
this scenario is hard to imagine in the case of a small business, 
tapes or backups belonging to big, influential entities are certainly 
at risk for this type of criminal behavior.

(BTW, many people assume a laptop running Windoze is secure by virtue 
of having a boot password, but these can be bypassed by booting with 
a Linux CD.  Remove the CD, shut down the laptop, return to courier.)

$0.02,
V.
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