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Auditors Report FBI Fails in Tracking Lost Laptops
An anonymous reader writes "The Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General is reporting that the FBI has lackluster performance when it comes to tracking data lost on missing laptops. In a recent 44-month audit (ending in Sept. 2005), the FBI reported 160 lost or stolen machines. Of those, ten were confirmed to have sensitive info. A startling 51 of these machines had unknown information — in other words the FBI never knew what they lost. Some of these machines likely contained some of the most sensitive security information the FBI has, as there were several in the bunch that belonged to members of the Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Divisions. But the FBI was never able to properly respond to these losses because someone didn't fill out the right paperwork. The OIG has a copy of the audit (pdf) for public consumption."
That's why They've begun to issue a remote access product called the MobiKEY. It is a USB token with a smart card that creates an SSL tunnel with 2 factor authentication (some sort of PKI based scheme) to your work computer. The company that makes this has a managed service called MobiNET that helps to broker the connection so that even Joe Sixpack can connect anywhere there is a net connection. The beauty of this is that all the corporate data stays behind the co there's no data to lose. If you do lose the token, the human that has it has four attempts to guess the password before the SIM fries itself. So assuming your password isn't "password" or something stupid like that, it's secure.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
The point is you would think an agency charged with highly sensitive information relating to national security would have their shit locked down airtight.
I've worked for some major corporations dealing with financial information that would've castrated people one by one until this was no longer a problem. I find it very hard to believe the FBI is this relaxed about the problem.
You're nothing; like me.
I've decided to comment instead of mod since I feel sure you'll get to 5 without me. This:
is the most insightful thing anyone is going to post on this topic. I'm in the middle of assisting with inventory issues in a major TLA. "Missing" laptops (Katrina/flood losses aside) are always explainable in these ways. Last week, a laptop that had been "lost" for over 5 years was found in a cabinet during an office move. Years ago, that laptop went on a public report as "lost." Our inventory tech had to fall on his sword and file paperwork removing it from active inventory because we couldn't find it. It wasn't taken home by anyone, stolen, or improperly passed on to another agency. It was simply misplaced.
Add to this the pallets of used equipment that get diskwiped and then donated to schools, a process often involving running around, looking for every unissued piece of obsolete equipment we can find and quickly doing whatever is necessary to get it onto the pallet, and you have a situation where laptops become "lost" in too-big numbers but without any real threat to anybodys security.
I would only be concerned, really, about two classes of losses. First is the handful (less than 10) that were stolen apparently due to negligence. However, in most of those cases, the data was routinely encrypted and, again, there's no security threat. Second are the 4 laptops that went home with employees when they retired. That's just inexcuseable.
Overall, 150 or so lost laptops in an organization that size is pretty damn good performance.