"The astonishing success of a US laptop thief is a
warning to IT managers to be far more alert about backing up and
encrypting data," said David Hobson, managing director of security
supplierGSS.
Career criminal
Eric Almly - aka the Khaki laptop bandit - is said to have
found his ideal career in computers.
Almly stole an impressive 66 laptops in the first three months
of this year, until he was apprehended by investigators.
Almly was finally caught after wandering into the Florida
headquarters of a restaurant chain and stealing 11 laptops in his
shoulder bag. Even then he almost charmed his was past the security
guard. Luckily for his victims, he made no attempt to exploit the
personal data gained from the stolen laptops. He simply erased the
data in preparation for auction on
eBay.
Hobson said, "I suspect that, had he been minded to, he could
have made even more money from examining and selling the data on
the notebook PCs before selling them on."
The impact could have been far worse, but Almly's modus
operandii says much about the vulnerability of companies in the US
and Britain, argued Hobson.
Almly would copy the dress codes and habits of employees in his
carefully targeted victims, hunting only in corporate offices. He
would arrive at four, when receptionists and part-timers have gone
and staff are at their most lax. He would by pass security by
following a staff member through a secure door. Since he always
acted like he belonged, nobody ever questioned why he never swiped
his own card or punched his own security code into the system.
Having gained access, he would load laptops into his shoulder
bags and smuggle them out. Sometimes he would post the laptops to
his latest address.