Peter A Clarke

There is a red faced court reporter in Ohio at the moment.  The hapless person lost a laptop computer and usb stick from an office inside the Summit County Courthouse as is reported in Laptop with sensitive information stolen from Summit County Courthouse.

 Losing computers and flash drives is a moment of annoyance and possibly a hit to the wallet. It gets more serious when the devices contain sensitive information about ongoing court cases.  Then it is a serious privacy breach.

Portable devices are notorious weak points in data security and a regular source of data breaches.  With the growing capacity of flash drives the tendency is to use them to store a significant volume of data even if it is not all going to be used. If the data is not encrypted then the loss of the device may lead to a very significant data breach.

The article provides:

AKRON, Ohio — Someone stole a laptop computer and a flash drive Thursday from a court reporter’s office inside the Summit County Courthouse.

The laptop and flash drive contained sensitive information about ongoing court cases, Summit County Sheriff Inspector Bill Holland said.

Holland declined to specify what the computer contained or what cases because it might hinder the investigation. He also said they are still trying to determine everything on the laptop and flash drive.

Holland provided two surveillance videos from the court house that showed a man in a blue baseball hat with the letters TMCMB on it walk through security about 4 p.m. Thursday.

Another video showed the man walking around the corridors near the court reporter’s office on the third floor of the Summit County Common Pleas Court.

Holland said the man stole the laptop and flash drive from inside the office.

The Summit County Sheriff’s Office provides security and investigates crimes that happen inside the county building.