The right technology to protect your data
Is your business protected against hackers, viruses and lax data security? Increasingly, businesses are facing regulations, fines, and consequences for breaches of sensitive data – one only has to look as far as Sony Playstation to see the strife businesses encounter when their online security isn’t sufficient.
Data breaches continue to increase in number and cost. Businesses have access to many robust security solutions. These include anti-virus applications, intrusion prevention systems (IPSs) and intrusion detection applications, as well as encryption, data loss prevention (DLP) solutions, and authentication applications (identity and access management solutions).
Yet, with all the security applications and approaches available today, companies are still vulnerable to data loss and theft. In fact, according to a 2010 Ponemon Institute benchmark study, the average laptop has about a seven per cent chance of being lost or stolen. Businesses are struggling not only to protect sensitive data, but also to prove compliance with increased security regulations in both Europe and North America.
Many factors contribute to the continued rise in data breaches, including:
- More sophisticated equipment and software applications for hackers. With less investment, it’s easier to break through security and commit data breaches.
- An increasingly mobile workforce. As users become more mobile, laptops – and their data – are more exposed to loss and theft. For example, healthcare workers are often mobile, not just within hospitals and healthcare centers, but between campuses. Other vulnerable groups include consultants, financial advisors, sales and marketing users, construction engineers, and other workers who travel between jobsites.
- Laptops are often shared in environments such as data centres, schools, and customer service centres. Sharing laptops among many users not only makes sensitive data more vulnerable to loss or theft, but it also puts data at greater risk of unauthorised access.
- Bulk shipments of laptops. The military, government agencies, and educational organisations are particularly vulnerable to laptop theft during transport.
- Expensive assets. Customised telecommunications laptops for field technicians, for example, are particularly tempting to thieves. As a result, their sensitive data are at greater risk of exposure.
- Security applications installed at the OS or BIOS level. These can be robust solutions, but are at risk of being circumvented or disabled.
- Security credentials are often stored in software. This makes them vulnerable to attacks aimed at gaining access to applications and data.
User behavior continues to increase risk
Users themselves can also cause security problems. They often keep passwords in places that a thief can access—such as on a sticky note kept with a laptop or in a wallet. In addition, assets aren’t always returned at the end of a lease or when users move to new positions or new companies. While loss of assets is costly because of end-of-lease buyouts, costs can escalate because of exposure of sensitive data stored on those unreturned systems.
Data breach costs are still rising
Companies face both direct and indirect costs in the aftermath of a data breach:
- Stiffer fines, more post-incident requirements, and higher post-incident costs. For example, the average organisational cost of a data breach increased to US$6.75 million in 2009.
- Loss of intellectual property. Seventy-one per cent of laptop thefts result in a data breach, exposing not only client and consumer data but proprietary data as well.
- Legal costs of investigation, notification, and resolution of the incident. In 2009, average per-victim cost was US$204, an increase of US$2 per customer record compared to similar costs the year before.
- Credit monitoring. A company may need to provide costly credit monitoring for individuals who could be affected by the data breach.
- Damage to the brand. Loss of public and investor confidence, business opportunities, and revenue that resul