A USB stick stolen from a French cable worker's car contained the ground plans for France's most important government buildings. This incident highlights the importance of exercising care in choosing how to back up important data, and also using or leaving portable devices in public places.
According to French daily newspaper Le Parisien, thieves took the man's flash drive and other possessions after he parked his car outside Paris's Gare de Lyon railway station.
The stolen memory stick contained a collection of personal files and detailed ground plans for the most important government buildings in the country: the President's house at the Elysee Palace, as well as the headquarters of the Parisian police and the Beauveau Square … seat of France's Interior Minister. The documents, apparently, were not encrypted. It is not known whether it was a targeted theft or an opportunistic crime. The victim was employed by a company that had just won a contract to replace all the fibre-optic networking in these buildings as well as several other government properties. A police investigation into the theft, which happened on Sunday, 19 August, is underway.
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