Backup Tapes Lost by Iron Mountain Storage Company

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

This happens so often it’s almost not news anymore. Someone (insert company name here) loses information stored on a laptop, USB key drive, hard drive, etc. etc. What makes this unusual is the company that lost the information. Iron Mountain is a tape retrieval and storage company. And, this isn’t the first time they’ve done this.

Tapes containing the private information of employees of the Long Island Rail Road company (LIRR) were lost during “a routine delivery” in early April, said Iron Mountain, which handles and stores backup data for companies.

Other tapes belonging to a different company were also lost, but did not contain sensitive data, Iron Mountain said. The name of the client was not disclosed. Source: ZDNet UK

We Say: Last July Iron Mountain lost a container of backup tapes from several banks containing the account details of banking customers. Hmmm … and they’re still in business (yes, yes, I know they are one of the largest in this field). I’m hoping this second incident might make some of their customers wake up … or at least renegotiate their contracts.