Unless you’ve been on Mars for the past six months, you won’t have missed the high-profile data breaches suffered by both Government and private sector organisations. But why have these breaches been happening?
The proliferation of portable storage devices such as laptops, portable hard drives, USB sticks and ‘lifestyle’ products such as MP3 players, alongside unmanaged PC connectivity has created a recipe for disaster.
It really is just too easy to accidentally leave a USB stick in the pub or a laptop in the back of a taxi – or, indeed, lose a CD in the post.
Whatever policies are in place governing the treatment of sensitive data, the fact remains that humans will make mistakes.
Confidential data can never be completely safe. Organisations, therefore, need to ensure that all technological methods of protection are in place in order to minimise the risk to confidential information.
For example, encryption of all data that’s transferred onto a portable storage device would minimise the risks should that device be lost or stolen.
It’s a simple, quick and cost effective solution and yet it doesn’t seem to be happening as a matter of course. The reasons for this seem to be twofold:
