Mobile Phone Theft: Research identifies mobile phone theft 'Top Ten'

Mobile Phone Theft: Research identifies mobile phone theft 'Top Ten'

New research by the Midlands Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice at Loughborough University has identified a mobile phone 'Top Ten' hit list, and urges consumers and the mobile phone industry to increase their anti-theft efforts.

The study showed that almost half of all mobile phones stolen in 2005 were Nokia. Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Motorola make up most of the rest on the mobile hit list.

Using data from over 100,000 stolen phone crimes in London, the Loughborough research team found that in December 2005, the Nokia 6230 was top on the most stolen list, followed by the Motorola Razr, the Samsung D500 and the Sony Ericsson K750i.

The inspiration for the study was the Home Office's successful Car Crime Index, which prompted improved anti-theft designs in the car industry. The study, part of a project directed by Professor Graham Farrell which looks at designing-out phone theft, was published this week in the journal 'Justice of the Peace'.

The research looked at crimes recorded in Greater London during 2005 using data provided by the police National Mobile Phone Crime Unit.

Jen Mailley, lead author on the study, said: "Mobile phone theft has been increasing when many types of crime have been falling for years."
However the study's authors caution that it does not necessarily show which mobiles are more crime-prone than others.

"The top ten charts are a step in the right direction though," says Mailley, "because they empower consumers with information, which should stimulate anti-crime design efforts by the mobile phone industry."

The study was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. www.lboro.ac.uk

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Laptop Insurance: thefts pose real gov't data risk

Laptop Insurance:

Lost or stolen? The distinction matters...


A Freedom of Information enquiry by silicon.com has uncovered the number of laptops stolen from key UK government departments over the past year, raising questions and concerns about sensitive data falling into the wrong hands.

The worst affected department was the Ministry of Defence. It reported 21 laptops were stolen between July 2005 and July 2006.

Once you are onto the laptop it is possible to get all the passwords and use those credentials to access the VPN. You can own the laptop within 10 minutes and own the network shortly after.
The Home Office in total suffered 19 stolen laptops over the past year. Perhaps most worrying among those losses were four laptops stolen from the Identity and Passport Service. The Core Home Office unit suffered seven stolen laptops, while HM Prison Service had eight laptops stolen.

The Department of Trade and Industry told silicon.com it had 16 laptops stolen over the past year, while the Department for Work and Pensions reported it had nine laptops stolen. The Department of Health said it had lost 18 laptops, though couldn't clarify whether these were lost or stolen.

A submission from Defra, which lost 17 laptops, suggested government laptops are predominantly given out to senior members of staff at the departments. These are individuals in some cases likely to have access to the most sensitive information. The rural affairs agency named all staff who had lost laptops, including a number of senior managers and heads of division.

Experts who work with organisations to assess the level of risk they face following the loss or theft of laptops, have told silicon.com the fact these laptops are at large could present a serious risk of data theft, which should concern UK citizens.

Bryan Sartin, VP investigative response at CyberTrust, said laptops are the number one source of data theft across organisations largely due to the fact the owners have already done the hard part - taking data outside the four walls and the protected digital perimeter of the organisation.

He said any organisation that accesses sensitive information should consider itself a target.

Once the laptop has fallen into the wrong hands, getting into it and accessing sensitive data is relatively easy, according to Peter Wood, from penetration testing company First Base Technologies.

Wood said 90 per cent of stolen laptops are probably accessible within 10 minutes and even many of those with more sophisticated levels of encryption can still be accessed within three hours.

He added: "We see laptops with supposedly stronger security in place, such as smartcard authentication, but these are still trivially easy to overcome.

"And once you are onto the laptop it is possible to get all the passwords and use those credentials to access the VPN. You can own the laptop within 10 minutes and own the network shortly after."

Only those laptops with full disk encryption will thwart dedicated data thieves, said Wood.

And many doubt government departments will have levels of sophisticated security in place which even more advanced private sector organisations have been slow to adopt.


By Will Sturgeon

Published: Thursday 3 August 2006
http://www.silicon.com/publicsector/0,3800010403,39161159,00.htm

Romanian hides stolen mobile phone in vagina

A couple of years ago we reported on the Jamaican mobile phone thief who got herself into a bit of a sticky situation in Negril when "a cellular phone which was stolen from a female shopper was found after it rang from within another shopper's vagina".

Yup, the criminal mastermind had "tamponed" the phone but a quick call to the number and her cover was blown. Cue a humiliating public extraction of said phone by furious owner who declared: "Mi nuh wan' dat deh phone fi use again, mi would dash it weh."

Quite so. You'd think that this cautionary tale would be enough to deter even the most desperate mobe-lifter, but they obviously don't read Jamaica's Western Mirror in Romania, because light-fingered Ruxandra Gardian has been snared by the same "let's dial the number and see where she's stashed it" ploy.

Gardian was fingered by a restaurant customer who said he saw her steal the phone from another diner, FemaleFirst reports. Police quizzed the 34-year-old without success and were about to let her go when some bright spark suggested they call the mobe.

"On dialling the number they heard a sound coming from under Gardian's clothes and took her to police headquarters to be strip-searched," the report continues. You know the rest. Suffice it to say that a shaken officer Aurel Popescu commented: "I've seen a lot in my time as a policeman but never anything like this."

The phone's owner has refused to take the device back, declaring it was "damaged beyond repair and he would be filing an insurance claim". That should make entertaining reading and will doubtless reach the finals of the "Top Ten Mobile Phone Insurance Claims" awards for 2005.

In the meantime, we'd like to make a simple suggestion to would-be female mobe-snatchers who intend to make good their escape with a 3G device concealed in their reproductive tract: stick it on vibrate or turn the bloody thing off.

From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/19/mobile_phone_thief/