The State of Data Security: Defending Against New Risks and Staying Compliant
Today’s IT and business managers must take a hard look at the risks and costs of potential data loss. Creating a proactive data security plan arms you with the knowledge you need to manage the risk and helps you to stay compliant with data protection rules and regulations. We all know that data breaches are constantly in the news—in fact security breaches compromised more than 500 million U.S. records since 2005. Plus, lost data due to human error or negligence is just as much of a threat. Fortunately, it’s much less expensive to prevent a breach or other data loss incident, than it’s to respond to one and resolve it after the fact.
Recognize how your data can become vulnerable, including the latest issues stemming from unprotected data on mobile devices and social media sites. Understand the compliance issues involved, and identify data protection strategies you can use to keep your company’s information both safe and compliant.
CSO magazine’s 2011 CyberSecurity Watch Survey found that 81% of respondents’ organizations experienced a security event during the past 12 months, compared with 60% in 2010. Twenty-eight percent of respondents saw an increase in the number of security events as compared with the prior 12 months.
Today’s connected world makes it easier than ever to let companies collect personal information, often for completely legitimate reasons. Personal information is any information that someone can use to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person, or use with other sources to uniquely identify a single individual. This information typically must be protected by law. Credit card numbers from a retail sale, Social Security numbers on tax forms, bank account information for online bill payment, medical details from a doctor’s visit, and names, email addresses and birthdates entered on any Internet site registration—this data all resides in the databases of various companies, who often share it with third party vendors to perform a wide array of outsourced activities.
