The £980,000 Laptop
Nationwide is the UK's largest building society and last year one of its employees had a laptop stolen from his home. They reported the laptop stolen to Nationwide and then went on holiday. 3 weeks later he told them that the laptop had contained customer information and it was at this point Nationwide kicked off an investigation into the laptop's whereabouts and what exactly was stored on it.
Unfortunately for Nationwide, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) conducted their own investigation into the incident and determined that Nationwide's security wasn't up to scratch.
They've just fined them £980,000 for losing the laptop.
What was on the laptop is not completely clear but what is certain is that Nationwide will be rethinking their mobile computer security strategy.
Like other businesses they've been kicking the tyres of Windows Vista for some time and one of the things that might be on the agenda for their CIO at the moment is Bitlocker which is Windows Vista's full drive encryption technology which will protect a businesses (and customer) information should a laptop get into the wrong hands.
To read more about Bitlocker check out these resources: