25 Jun 2009

Manchester council in data loss hot water

The personal records of almost two thousand people have been lost by Manchester city council.

As a result, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has called on the council to improve its data management efficiency and increase data security.

"Organisations must implement appropriate safeguards to ensure personal details are handled securely and do not fall into the wrong hands," Sally-anne Poole, head of enforcement and investigations at the ICO, said.

The ICO added that the safeguarding of public information should always be a top priority for those which handle such data.

Meanwhile, disaster recovery efforts recently had to be made after a hacker sabotaged a hosted exchange server operated by UK hosting provider VAServ and managed to wipe the information from more than 100,000 websites.

The unnamed hacker claimed to have contacted the company prior to the attack warning them of the vulnerability, however, having not received a response he proceeded to delete the information contained on the server.