No encryption on Defence's lost and found memory stick

Loss had minimal security impact, Defence says.

A misplaced thumb drive that was returned to the Department of Defence last week was a commercial product with no encryption enabled.

The department’s investigation revealed that the drive belonged to a Defence contractor, and had 61.3 megabytes of data that included Defence material.

No encryption was enabled on the memory stick, which was “a commercial product purchased by the owner”, a spokesman told iTnews last night.

Although the drive was initially reported to have 20 classified documents, the spokesman said that most of information was unclassified.

“The only material that was classified held the lowest form of security classification,” he said. “Our assessment is that the loss of this material has a minimal security impact.”

Defence did not comment on its relationship with the contractor, beyond that the contractor had “cooperated fully” with the department’s investigation.