UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has shouted at his ministers and told them to take more care of their personal belongings after a top secret laptop was nicked from Communities Secretary Hazel Blears' office.

The laptop was taken from an office in northern England on Saturday and follows a case of two sets of confidential documents that have been left on trains by security officials in the last week. One set of papers included secret briefings on Iraq and al-Qaida. Greg Day, security analyst at McAfee, told Fudzilla that there is a need for all organisztions, including the government, to assess security policie,s as data is clearly becoming a key target for criminals. He said that in this case government data was a target.

He said that in recent years there has been an explosion in mobile devices and nomadic working and whilst these ways of working can improve productivity, everyone needs a greater awareness of the data risks involved. All members of an organization need to work together to eliminate any weaknesses in the security chain. While it is impossible to eliminate the risk of laptops and other devices being stolen, security tools, such as encryption, can eliminate the risks associated with data leakage.