The Case of the Missing Flash Drive

We have heard time and time again that one of the criticisms of flash drives is that they can easily get lost. This time we look at real life case of this issue. A professor lost a flash drive full of data of his students. Such an event sent shivers the spine of students since they are in an era that one compromise in personal security can give lots of things away to the thieves.

"Officials think the drive contained the students' names, their grades for the professor's classes and their Social Security numbers, which the university uses as identification. The university is in the process of creating a non-Social Security-based identifier for students."

The other question I would like to ask is why was the teacher allowed to have the Social Security numbers of his students? What if he is of dubious character as well? Shouldn't such data be in the confines of the school servers alone wherein proper security measures through a combination of software and hardware tools are being used?

Source:UK students' data stolen

Technorati tags: Flash Drives / USB Drives / Security / Thief / Identity Theft / Professor / Students