Environment Canada Protected documents found on street

Environment Minister John Baird has asked officials to look into how a 131 page government document from his department came to be found on a street in the Kanata area of Ottawa in a rain-stained, tire-marked, brown paper envelope. 

Baird said the document - detailing how Environment Canada computers could be hacked - contained no top secret or classified information. 

Baird further commented: "It's certainly bizarre"

He added: "It's a bit of an odd story for someone to find something like that on the side of the road." 

Actually Mr Baird, this happens all the time... Just Google it...

The document is what is known as a TRA, a Threat and Risk Assessment. This is a document commonly created by IT security experts when evaluating the risk associated with the use and management of information and of information systems. While it is probably true that the document itself does not contain sensitive data per say, it points out the vulnerabilities of information systems and could be very usefull to hackers.

The CBC, which was given the document, reported that it assesses the security of a database used to track and prosecute polluters and environmental law-breakers and details how a hacker could access, attack and corrupt the data. 

The phrase "Protected B" is at the top of each page, This means it's not top-secret, but must be handled with care, as described on the Treasury Board Secretariat's website. 

Paul Dewar, an Ottawa New Democrat MP, said the combined security lapses raise serious questions about the government's ability to secure sensitive documents. Dewar further said that bureaucrats have complained to him that the Conservative government has instituted a policy of classifying almost all documents, to the point that bureaucrats can't even share them with colleagues in the same department. Yet when a document is lost or turns up unexpectedly in public, the government routinely says it wasn't particularly sensitive. "This government is so consumed with control of information and secrecy yet they don't seem to be able to get the fundamentals right," Dewar said. 

Considering that the federal IT security experts claim to be World Class experts and represent Canada in all kinds of international security organisations, such as ISO, ITU-T and elsewhere, this is a amusing story...

Sources: 

http://www.chom.com/news/14/772168

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/479510