If your car is stolen because you left the keys in the ignition, your insurer would not cover you for the theft because you hadn’t taken reasonable precautions.

Unfortunately, the UK Ministry of Defence has just had a laptop containing defense secrets stolen from its London headquarters, together with the equivalent of the ignition key. The encryption key was taken along with the computer, apparently giving the thief access to the laptop’s files.

This highlights a vital issue in IT security practice, but one that is often overlooked: never, ever leave an encryption key, security token or any indication of a password near the computer it protects. Even if that computer is inside a highly secure building like the Ministry of Defence HQ, there’s still a risk that a curious, or disgruntled, colleague could access the PC and data.

Your safest bet is to probably keep your most valuable data on a secure usb drive - just don’t keep the password laying around.