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Data security risk continues unabated in the first month of 2009
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Dns
: 29 January, 2009 (Technical Article) |
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Three major incidents of lost data records during January indicates that data security still isn't as stringent as it should be |
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As the first month of 2009 draws to a close it seems that we still haven't learnt our lesson when it comes to data security. Both public and private sector organisations have been at fault as data loss incidents were reported on consecutive days. The British council has admitted losing the personal data on 2,000 employees while jobs site Monster has revealed the details of 4.5 million job seekers have been stolen by hackers in the largest data theft in Britain.
Not to be outdone, an American company, Heartland Payment Systems, Inc. reported a data breach now being described as the single largest fraud related data loss ever in United States history. It has been estimated that over 100,000,000 individual credit and debit card accounts have been compromised.
Don Smith technical director at dns, a UK based consultancy specialising in information security services, argues that it is high time that organisations rectified this embarrassing situation. "With more and more people conducting their business electronically, it has never been more important for organisations to up their game. After repeated high profile data loss incidents it might have been expected that data protection would be a priority for a majority of companies although it appears that many are still in desperate need of guidance.
The current economic climate has only added to the problems of organisations trying to protect IT systems; new solutions can be expensive however, a public data leak can be even more so. Equally important as security infrastructure is the implementing and enforcement of security policy. Organisations that are struggling in these areas can and should seek help from security experts, who can help manage data and threats on a 24/7 basis. By tightening security in this way, organisations can avoid becoming victims of the next embarrassing, and expensive data loss or breach."
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