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. - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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