Shocking security naivety

A true story:

Prosecutor throws supposed crashed PC, with vulnerable data about criminals still on it, on the street for the garbageman...

Today, the following act of dumbness(?)/ naivety is hot news in the Netherlands:
A prosecutor in Amsterdam, involved in cases of organised heavy crime, -especially investigating the financial transactions of these- has thrown away his PC on the street, because "the thing got a virus on it"....

He didn't bother to trash the thing first; or remove the harddisc; no, because it didn't function anymore he just threw the whole thing on the street, where it was picked up by a cabdriver, who managed to remove the virus and retrieved - to his big surprise!- very intimidating secret information about, among others, heavy criminals of the Amsterdam underground/drugs scene.
This information included (personal) data about a.o. murderers, drugsdealers, gang- and mobsterleaders and their connections in both the underground and the 'normal' society...

The cabbie now shared this info with the wellknown crime scene journalist of Holland, who ofcourse couldn't believe his eyes, and will now make report of these findings in his televisionprogram tonight.

Really unbelievable how someone with such important job can be so ignorant, neglective, dumb or.....

is this a set-up after all?

Amazing...

 

Unfortunately, this is not shocking, IMO. Laughable and foolish, definitely, but not shocking. People drag whole PC's to the curb quite often. Crazy.

 

Shoot I have a meeting tonight, I would like to see Peter R. de V.
And you know I am to old to know how to operate a VCR
Greetz,

Gerard

PS Gov. sites until now still down (talking about dumb/naieve)

 

Do you have a reference link for this?

 

yep, would like to see that too in Belgium. maybe some new jokes between us??

just kiddin.

 

Here you go

More links will follow later.
regards,
slammer

 

That is one amazing story, but have we heard the whole story, i mean perhaps the Attorney went for a "coffee" and when he returned it was gone.

Slammer, perhaps you could share some details tommorrow, i don't have any dutch channel's.

 

OK Don, Keep you posted.
Just need to find some more english written links.
For now it's first...dinner time here

grtz
slam

 

Prosecutor throws PC with sensitive data in the trash

 

Dank U

 

Makes you wonder if they're going to throw the attorney out as well...
Probably not
Can't wait 'till tonights show begins...

 

Very entertaining story, shocking too...

Makes you wonder... is he the only one that's acting this way:

no login in wnidows
no encryption
secret files at home, at a home pc
no virus scanner
internet connected



It stills on tv, meet you later

 

Dear Optigrab,
I can see why in your opinion you don't find this shocking:
Looking at it from a computer-related side only I (sadly ) have to agree with you, but...
in this case that wasn't the only meaning of my topic.
I don't blame you, because computer/internet related security is what this forum mostly is all about after all.

But please allow me to clearify what is, or could be involved here as well:
one of the 'very sensitive cases' that were found on this prosecutors' PC deals about a notarious Amsterdam businessman who was suspected to have very close (financial) ties to the underground/maffia, and... was killed late May this year.
You can understand that this kind of information is/can be very dangerous to many people when fallen into the wrong hands... it really could have been a matter of life & death...
THAT is why I consider this a VERY SHOCKING act of naivety -to say the least- from such a -supposed to be- intelligent, well-educated and trustworthy person, with a job that requires a huge sense of responsibility and being very careful and discrete. Don't you agree?

regards,
slammer

 

@ BUBBA:

Thank you for the link; I couldn't have found a better one!

regards,
slam
(Do read this story and you know the details.)

 

Follow up:

* the television program mentioned above, by the wellknown Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, shown on last Thursday has had a audience of some 1.397.000 viewers (Dutch population is appr. 16 million); to make it one of the best watched programs of that day.

* Members of parliament demanded explanation from Dutch minister of Justice on Thursday, to give some answers on how this could have happened, and what concequences this 'blooper' would be having for the mentioned prosecutor.
To be expected the minister kept it all vague, saying he'd like to have the pc back in the hands of Justice, to see what kind of information had been 'leaked', before they could be taking any action.
Above that the 'master of all civil servants'(... ) had the guts to make a disapproving remark on the fact that the prosecutor not only was so stupid to do this, but even "put the PC on the curbs the night before garbage-pick up day, which is not allowed and therefore a violation of city laws"......tsss

* Crime reporter Peter R. de Vries promised to voluntary return the PC back into the hands of the Justice dept. on next Monday 11 Oct.

Gee...wonder how many copies of that hard-disc he can still make today?


When there's more I'll keep you all posted.
l8r,
slam

 

Wow, what an amazing story. I got the opportuniity to visit Amsterdam twice last year(great city), so it's very interesting to learn a little about the crime syndicate there.


Thanks for the link.

 

Peter R. only have to copy files from past 18 months and then wipe it from the trash computer. These files officially dont excist

 

i wonder if its uploaded on winmx yet

 

Peter R. most likely hand over the laptop today (monday) to the dept. of justice.
He didn't copy a file.
He only printed everything.

 

Great liink, Bubba!!

WOW, Slammer, bet some people are gonna hit the ground running, some people just still believe if you press "delete" the info is gone!! Maybe this will open some eyes!
And not just in Amsterdam, do people still want the government to make laws about computer usage?? Better re-think that one!!

Marja

 

ROFL

Yeah, good one Gerard.

(Explanation: the Dutch ministry of Justice last week tried to calm down all the uproar by stating that "the PC involved was an 'old' one; which hadn't been used for the last 18 months by the prosecutor, and therefore obtained no recent cases....."

Pity, though that the prosecutor was so stupid to leave his ID + password for his recent email address on it as well.....
A demonstration of login in to his recent emailaccount was given on the tv show by Peter R de Vries! (Naturally Peter wasn't that stupid to OPEN any emails- for that would be a crime as well )

cheers,
slam

 

It seems Tonino's mailbox has been cracked now and some e-mail is published on a certain website. (I don't give that one because it is in dutch). They cracked his new password. Later this day there will be an official statement from the gouvernement.

Gerard

 

definitely naive sjeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzz!

 

LATEST NEWS: (Tue Oct. 12)

Prosecutor resigns from office.

Amsterdam prosecutor Tonino decided to quit his job on Tuesday, after stating that his credibility and functionality were highly damaged over the last few days, following the shocking revealing of his PC's content, and the consequences and uproar this has effected.

His bosses are looking for a new position for him now.




I would start by sending him to a newbie computing course first....

 

And don't forget the other n00bs still in office over there.

There is a security policy but it's classified I think it's about time they told their personnel about security policies and best practices.