Stolen flash drive with sensitive financial info

Another example that demonstrates the need to follow security policy when it comes to keeping personal and financial information handled by businesses and organizations secure comes from Portland.

Portland’s Community College announced that a small flash drive was stolen from the car of an official of the institution, and that it unfortunately contained sensitive financial information regarding the 2,900 participants of the Oregon Food Stamp Transition Program.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, the spokesman of the PCC says that the information wasn’t password protected or encrypted, and that it would be very easy for the thief to access it and use it. The only mitigating factor here is the fact that the flash drive was in a bag, so it is highly likely that the criminal was after money, not information.

Just in case, the college has offered credit protection services to the affected people. According to OPB News, the spokesman says it is definitely against the institution’s security policy and protocol to be carrying around this kind of information unprotected, and that situations such as these are precisely the reason why information is kept on various locations, so that employees don’t have to transport it.