Thieves steal 40 IBM infrastructure servers

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,999312-6079-0,00.html

10 January 2002 

THIEVES struck at information technology company IBM's data centre in
Sandown, Johannesburg, this week, making off with sophisticated
hardware housing data owned by some major JSE Securities Exchange
SA-listed companies.

IBM yesterday confirmed the theft by three men of almost 40
infrastructure machines, comprising servers and other hardware, at
1.30am on Monday.

The company said it believed the robbery was an opportunistic one as
most of the equipment was new and unused.

About 16 servers contained information that would be virtually useless
to anyone outside of the company because they contained IBM-specific
software.

Zoaib Hoosen, strategic outsourcing executive at IBM, said the
disruption to IBM clients as a result of the break-in had been minimal
as most of the equipment did not contain data but was used as a
gateway by IBM and some of its clients.

Apart from one client, which experienced problems with its website on
Monday, all clients had their services up and running by the start of
business on Monday morning.

Three of these experienced minor glitches during the day and these
were rectified by IBM before the close of business.

Hoosen said the client that did experience problems was using
specialised infrastructure equipment, but no data was lost and full
service capabilities had since been restored.

Citing company policy, Hoosen declined to divulge the names of the
affected clients but sources said that some JSE Securities Exchange
SA-listed clients, including two major mining houses, were using the
facilities.

Hoosen said the company had beefed up security at the facility since
the robbery. Although some data may have been on the stolen machines,
modern encryption facilities would ensure that access to this data was
virtually impossible and there was no danger of loss of data to the
clients.

Hoosen declined to comment on the motive for the robbery, saying this
was a matter for the police to investigate.

However, he said the nature of the heist and the fact that some of the
equipment stolen, such as hubs, would be of use only to IBM indicated
that it was more of an opportunistic theft.

Hoosen said that, while a break-in such as this was never positive for
a company, IBM's strength lay in the fact that it had the skills and
personnel available to rectify such setbacks in a matter of hours.

This was demonstrated by services to clients being up and running by
Monday morning.

IBM would bear the full cost of the robbery, Hoosen said.



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