TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Audit Finds Potential For Data Leaks

Audit Finds Potential For Data Leaks

Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com)
Thu, 28 Apr 2005 23:21:07 -0400

Audit finds potential for data leaks
Resale computers still contained files

By Christi Parsons and Rudolph Bush, Tribune staff reporters. Christi
Parsons reported from Springfield, and Rudolph Bush reported from
Washington. Tribune reporter Ray Long also contributed to this report.

Warning of the potential for an embarrassing breach of security, state
auditors said their recent review of used state computers warehoused
for public sale found that nearly one-third had not had their hard
drives wiped clean of information as required by Illinois law.

In a little-noticed finding contained in Auditor Gen. William
Holland's blistering report on Gov. Rod Blagojevich's Department of
Central Management Services, the auditor said that several state
agencies had shipped computers to the department for resale that
contained potentially sensitive information. Among the computers
Holland mentioned were some once used by the secretary of state's
office, which tracks driver's licenses and a wide range of other
personal data.

Despite a state law requiring that hard drives be scrubbed clean
before a state computer can be sold, 15 of 50 computers offered for
resale by Central Management Services and tested by auditors during a
two-week period last year had not been cleaned.

On five of those units, auditors still couldn't access the hard-drive
data, but on 10 others, they could. They accessed instant message
programs, "my documents" folders, video games and, in the case of one
University of Illinois computer, student homework.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0504280242apr28,1,5203560.story

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