If you're concerned about your IP getting stolen, back it up offline. If anything ever happens and you need to go after that IT company, take your backed up data (back it up again somewhere else) to a lawyer and sue them for your losses, plus some. If you're realllllly paranoid, save the money on the outsourced IT and spend it on training someone you do trust to do the job, and still keep offline backups.

I'm just shocked that no one ever thought to change the password! Even a weak password is better than default. I guess someone will be writing a 10 page paper, aka, an SOP.

Backup to something other than another online server. Tapes aren't all too expensive when you consider what's been lost. I feel sorry for them simply because some jerk with nothing better to do decided to destroy 13 years of someone's life. It sucks for the company to learn a lesson in this way. Maybe they can get some tools and try to do a drive recovery, if the hacker didn't do a true scrub with something like the Gutmann method.

I agree that nuclear batteries would be a great idea in theory. I'm not a NASA employee, or scientist, but I would venture a guess that the risk is not worth the reward just yet. Imagine the first time one of those suckers breaks apart on liftoff.... "We're sorry ladies and gentlemen, Florida is now closed. We hope you enjoyed your stay and we look forward to seeing you when we reopen in 30 years. Thank you and goodbye."