So, Her Majesty’s delightful Revenue and Customs have now got into a bit of a pickle - they’ve lost 25 million people’s confidential information.
And, it appears that HM Revenue and Customs won’t tell us whether or not the data was encrypted, for ’security reasons’. Well, that generally means, ‘they aren’t’.
So, put simply, a huge cock-up.
However, it would have been made a lot better if the data had been encrypted - in other words, scrambled to make it impossible to read without a ‘key’.
So, if they weren’t encrypted, why not? And, what’s more, why the hell were they sent through the insecure postal system, and not either a) delivered by hand or b) delivered over at least two encryption methods by running a cable between the HQ of HMR&C and the Audit Office?
Nevertheless, most people reading this (well, if they have children) will be concerned about whether or not to worry about it. Well, chances are you don’t.
However, there are some common-sense rules concerning passwords etc - basic stuff, which is really important.
- If you’re using a blank password, for goodness’s sake CHANGE IT!
- If you’re using an easily-guessed password, such as password, open, security etc., change it.
- If it contains you or your children’s date/s of birth, change it.
- If it contains you or your children’s names, change it.
- If it’s the same as your username, change it.
- If it’s shorter than 12 characters, change it.
- If it only contains letters or only contains numbers, change it.
- If you haven’t changed the password for more than three months, change it.
- If you’ve given it to someone, then you’re a twit. Change it.
- If you see any unusual transactions on your statement, tell the bank and change it.
Common sense tells you most of these things, and you might think ‘it won’t happen to me!’. Tough luck, mate. The Bad Guys are out there to get you, and while we can’t stop government staff being so stupid, we can put in some common sense protection to avoid being affected.
