Tokyo — The last thing technicians should do after last week’s shift was to remove sensitive information from USB sticks.
Instead, after transferring the data, he dropped a small storage device in a bag, Izakaya.. There, he spent about three hours drinking with three colleagues before encountering a street and eventually fainting.
When he woke up around 3am last Wednesday, his bag (two USB drives, one of which contained a backup device with the same information) was gone. So was his exact memory of what happened.
The missing embarrassed officials in the industrial city of Amagasaki, northwest of Osaka, explained at a press conference were the names, birthdays, and ID numbers of about 460,000 people in the city’s total population. Their home address and bank details were also in the pile of data.
The unidentified man was a subcontractor of Biprogy, a technology company hired by the city to distribute subsidies to families affected by the coronavirus pandemic. As part of that work, we moved the personal information of the residents from the city’s computer to the computer at the call center in Suita, near Osaka, to help with payment details.
He took a break from work the next day to find a drive. Unable to find them, later that day he reported the loss to the Suita police station where he was going to drink with a colleague. He warned his workplace.
The next day, the company formed a search party. When that effort failed, Amagasaki authorities held their contempt briefing.
At a press conference, Mayor Kazumi Inamura, Mayor of Amagasaki, said, “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to the citizens.”
The information on the USB stick was protected by a 13-digit alphanum password, another city official, Tomota Nakao, said in a clear attempt to reassure the people who failed to reach their goals. I added.
Angry residents flooded the city hall 30,000 angry calls Within 24 hours.Online users searched and guessed the list of “Amagasaki encrypted flash drives” in the online marketplace. The time it takes to crack the password.. An electronics company seized the opportunity to remind the public about encrypted USB sticks. It explains that it is not affected by data breaches.
The next day, two days after the lost thumb drive disappeared, an employee found a drive in the same bag outside the Suita apartment building while exploring the area with police officers. I did. Biprogy held another press conference to share the good news.
It was unclear how the USB stick got there, but according to company officials, the password hasn’t changed and there are no signs of data leaks so far.
“He was so drunk that he fell asleep. His memory was ambiguous, so he may have gone there himself,” he said.
Takeuchi said the company hadn’t fully explained to the city authorities that it would use a USB drive to transfer data, and that only one employee would perform the task. In the future, he added, the company will use multiple employees for such data transfers or employ secure delivery services.
“We take this case seriously and educate our employees so that it never happens again,” he said.
A Biprogy representative said the employee had been working in the industry for nearly 20 years and deeply regrets not being able to erase the data immediately after finishing work. Akiyoshi Hiraoka, president and chief executive officer of Biprogy, said the company has not yet decided how to do it, but employees will be disciplined.
USB sticks, which are small and easy to misplace, have traditionally been a source of costly accidents. Heathrow Airport was fined $ 147,000 Includes name, passport number, 10th birthday, etc. after employees lost their unencrypted hard drive in 2018.
However, many items lost in Japan have also been recovered.The country is running very effectively Lost and found office Approximately for many years 6,000 capsule police station Known as a “police box” in neighborhoods across the country.
In 2015, 26.7 million items, excluding cash, were brought to the Japanese police. In 2016, 3.67 billion yen, or about $ 27 million, in cash was returned to the police in Tokyo alone.
Makiko Inoue reported from Tokyo and Tiffany May from Hong Kong.
