London Data Centre theft brings up worrying questions

Burglars posing as policemen successfully made their way into a data centre near London's King's Cross station on Thursday 6th December.

According to a Metropolitan Police statement, "Three to five male suspects, dressed as police officers, gained entry to the property at approximately 21:00 by claiming to a member of [Police] staff".

They stole equipments worth one million pounds according to some sources; the bounty included micro-system motherboards but apparently no storage devices.

Because of their specific nature, these motherboards would be very difficult to sell even on Ebay, especially as they would come without any warranty.

Telecommunications company Verizon Business, who runs the data centre, did not confirmed the nature of the data lost or the exact value of the appliances stolen.

Although the building was equipped with state of the art security, the heist shows that human beings are still the weakest link in any security systems and that social engineering is one of the most effective tools conmen have.

It also raises the question of whether data centers are not quickly turning into honey pots for criminals both offline and online.

Another London data centre owned by Easynet was broken into back in October 2006.

No arrests have been made yet.