Can anyone top this: the Ministry of Defence here in the UK has admitted that last year it managed to lose a server. A whole one, and get this, it was meant to be located in a secure government building for good measure.

Over the years I have become more than a little immune to data loss stories, probably as a result of the sheer number of press releases concerning this subject that pass through my inbox every month. Yes, I was gobsmacked when the UK government admitted that it had managed to lose a couple of discs from HM Revenues and Customs which contained the financial details of some 25 million citizens. But when news filtered through that a memory stick with personal data of every single prisoner in the land had gone missing my gob was less smacked than it might have been.

When I read that the average cost of a data breach to a company is some $6.65 million my brow was wrinkled a little, but remained as smooth as a baby's bottom upon discovering that 12,000 laptops are lost in US airports every week. I will even admit that I had a bit of a non-moment when writing about the bank employee who stole its computers and sold them to co-workers or on ebay.

However, reading that a supposedly secure government building can allow an entire server to go walkies did peak my interest once more. Apparently the Ministry of Defence admits, that the server was discovered to not be there when the secure government building was being closed down. The MOD insists that it has made significant progress in improving how it deals with information security. Oh well, that's OK then.