I have been out on the road the past few weeks but I am glad to be back. I was reading about the latest data theft at Boeing today. A disgruntled employee with the intent of hurting his employer placed sensitive data on a thumb drive with the hopes of leaking it to a local Seattle newspaper. As you probably guessed, this man is unlikely to receive any employee awards or merits. What really caught my eye in this story was the ‘potential’ financial impact had the newspaper not done what is right – a whopping $5-$15 billion loss was possible. If you’re like me, your wondering what the heck the data said? Did it unveil the material makeup for it new dream liner or was it indicative of bad business practices?

One of my favorite security lecturers is Bruce Schneier. If you ever have the chance to listen or speak with Bruce, you’ll be entertained and well educated by the end. In reviewing this data breach, Schneier bring up valid points of practicality, “If a company hires an untrustworthy employee, there is almost nothing it can do to prevent theft”, Schneier argues. “What’s done in African mines is they do full-body cavity strip searches every time they leave. That works,” Schneier says.

I’ll talk more about USB thumb drives in a future entry but in the meantime, check out RedCannon Security. I can’t validate whether or works yet but these guys caught my eye as a needed innovation in the security space. RedCannon says it can restrict the types of USB drives that are plugged into computers, monitor what data is pulled from a hard drive, and remotely destroy content if the thumb drive is inserted into an Internet-connected computer. As an extra safeguard, RedCannon says its products can set USB devices to stop working when they are not inserted into a computer connected to the Internet