Intelligence agency misplaced 'a very significant number' of removable drives — storage media have been missing for years, but exact number of lost devices remain unknown
An investigation revealed that thousands of drives have been lost, with officials having no idea where they could be.
The UK's Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office (IPCO) has raised concerns over "a very significant number" of removable storage drives from General Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) that have been missing for years without a confirmed count. The Register reports that GCHQ officials have been aware of the issue for years, yet they lack a clear understanding of the scale, location, and potential recovery of the lost media.
The commissioner, Lord Brian Leveson, expressed concern regarding the lack of a comprehensive account, emphasizing the need for ongoing senior oversight and effective remediation. Despite acknowledging the technical challenges, GCHQ has taken steps to prevent future incidents, citing insufficient tracking systems as the issue. They have implemented measures to mitigate risks and launched a program to locate the missing drives, with an automated asset-tracking system expected to be operational by 2027.
Known as the primary signals intelligence and cybersecurity agency in the UK, GCHQ operates under the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) of 2016, which governs government surveillance and data collection. While the agency has not disclosed the nature of the missing drives, it could potentially contain sensitive information about GCHQ's operations and administration.
This incident echoes similar lapses in other government organizations, including the UK Ministry of Defence losing 87 classified USB drives between 2003 and 2008 and the UK police dealing with officers losing assigned tech gadgets. Other nations have also experienced significant tech blunders, with South Korea losing 858TB of data after a data center fire and Indonesia losing data due to a ransomware attack, both without proper backups.
Written by urgent.news from Tom's Hardware's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
