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UK PM's Aide Loses BlackBerry In Chinese Honeytrap

Posted by timothy on from the my-envy-exceeds-his-chagrin dept.

longacre writes "The Times of London is today reporting a January incident in which a top aide to Prime Minister Gordon Brown discovered his BlackBerry missing from his hotel room after spending the night with an attractive woman who approached him in a Shanghai disco. Seems this was a run-of-the-mill BlackBerry without any encryption, only a simple password lock. The greatest fear is that, even if the device did not contain any sensitive messages at the time, there was likely enough information on board for a hostile intelligence service to snake its way deep into Downing Street's email servers. The aide was 'informally reprimanded.'"

2 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. Re:If you can lose a blackberry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's no such thing as a BlackBerry without encryption. All data to and from a BlackBerry is TripleDES or AES encrypted, regardless if you're on a BES or using your carrier webmail.

    If he's on a BES the problem is non-existent, the Admin can remotely wipe the BlackBerry with a single command.

    Plus, if someone enters the password wrong ten times, the device wipes itself

    The only security issue here is if the guy used a really easy password. And even that can be avoided because the admin can specify password complexity so users can't enter stuf like, '1234'

  2. Re:This seems to be a recurring problem. by Guido+von+Guido · · Score: 5, Informative

    My country doesn't have the attractive women, frankly. I'm Canadian.

    There, fixed that for you.

    I just moved to downtown Toronto. I can assure you that you're wrong. Although perhaps we're stockpiling them.