News

posted on 02 June 2008 08:40

An unfortunate or careless US Commerce Secretary left his laptop computer unattended on a visit to China in December last year and its contents may have been copied, highlighting Windows' notoriously bad security.

Carlos M. Gutierrez and officials visited a Beijing trade fair in December 2008 and his laptop was left behind as he moved around. Its contents may have been copied. The incident is under investigation and a unit of the US Department of Homeland Security has visited the Commerce Department several times, according to an AP report.

There is no evidence that the laptop contained confidential information as government rules should have prevented that. However there is a US government security climate that is apprehensive of Chinese government-backed attempts to discover classified information. Since 2006 many intrusion attempts on US government computers and networks have been blamed on China.

According to an Akamai 'State of the Internet' report, 'China and the United States were the two largest attack traffic sources, accounting for some 30 percent of this traffic in total,' in the January to March 2008 time period.

^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}