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Buyer of Used Hard Disks Gets 27TB of Government Data

posted by martyb on Tuesday December 10 2019, @05:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the that's-a-big-easter-egg dept.

shortscreen writes:

From Asahi Shimbun

A man who won an Internet auction for used hard disks soon discovered that he was in the possession of confidential and sensitive government information that he had no business reading.

At first, the man, who owns an information technology company, was puzzled when he found repeated mention in the file names of Kanagawa Prefecture.

But he was in for a greater shock when he used recovery software and found that the files on the hard disks contained mountains of data compiled by the Kanagawa prefectural government.

The data included everything from individuals who were behind on their taxes and the amount; documents considering the seizure of assets; documents related to contract bid amounts; rosters of employees at public schools; and even design blueprints for electric power plants and water supply works.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:57PM

    by Freeman (732) on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:57PM (#931089) Journal

    The hard disks had been made available on the Internet auction site by a male employee of Broadlink Co., which was commissioned by Fujitsu Leasing to wipe the data from replaced hard disks. The employee was in charge of wiping the data, but he instead pilfered a number of the disks and posted them on the auction site.

    While the operator of the information technology company placed the brunt of the blame on the Broadlink employee, he was also critical of the lax computer security measures taken by the Kanagawa prefectural government.

    "Why did it allow for reformatting of hard disks that made it possible for the data to be restored using easily available software?" the man asked. "Why wasn't the data encrypted when stored and why weren't government officials on hand to witness the destruction of the hard disk?"

    http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201912070027.html [asahi.com]

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