The Enigma machine was most famously used by the German military to encrypt messages in the Second World War. The idea was simple, encrypt messages so that nobody could understand them.

Fast forward sixty years or so, and recall the words of Santayana “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it".

An article in the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7197045.stm) reported the theft of a laptop form a Royal Navy Officer. This should have been a non-story as military people all over the globe have known about encryption for centuries. The problem was that the data was no encrypted and contained extensive personal information. The odds are that the laptop was stolen for the sake of it being a laptop, however the data could potentially be used to perform identity theft.

Encryption is not just about protecting military secrets. If you have sensitive information, even on desktop PCs, you should be encrypting the data. Employee information and intellectual property should be encrypted.

That known confidential information was not encrypted by a military organization, in possession of very high grade encryption technologies is truly an enigma.

Randy Abrams is the Director of Technical Education for ESET LLC