Taxmen lose their laptops - but technology keeps them safe

Swedish security firm Pointsec Mobile Technologies has inked a deal to provide the US inland revenue (IRS) with security applications to protect its fleet of laptops and Palm devices.

The deal is aimed at preventing the IRS making the same mistakes as the UK Ministry of Defence, which had its data compromised after a laptop with highly confidential information was left in the back of a London cab. Another high-profile example of such clumsiness is an MI5 agent who left his laptop holding secret information on Northern Ireland in Paddington Station.

The deal also highlights the growing fears over the security of data held on wireless and mobile devices.

Thomas Bill, CEO of Pointsec Mobile Technologies, said: "This will protect IRS technology. If they lose any of their devices, it won't be possible for anyone to get access to them."

The deal will see the IRS spend around £200,000 to protect "several thousands" of Palm handsets and laptop computers. Pointsec's software controls access to the devices by means of intelligent password generation and PKI-based encryption.

The news coincides with a report on vulnerabilities in the Palm operating system published on security newsgroups this week by security expert Mudge, VP of R&D at security firm @Stake.

The report highlights a number of problems, including frail access security, as potential dangers. It also says Palm devices could be compromised by viruses beamed by infrared.

Jason R Conyard, director of Wireless strategy for security firm Symantec, said: "Most of the security problems we are seeing with mobile devices are behavioural - people not taking care of the information on their PDAs and laptops like they would on their PCs. Increasingly the future threat is coming from viruses that will take down data in the same way wired viruses do today."

Pointsec declined to say whether it is in talks with the Ministry of Defence about providing a similar solution for mobile devices in the UK.