How Companies Must Protect Important And Sensitive Data

Article Based On 2010 Data Breach Investigation Report. You can also download the report (in pdf Format) by clicking the above link.

What companies must do to protect our data?

Throughout 2009, according to the 2010 Data Breach Investigation Report, Verizon investigated 57 "confirmed breaches" that included data theft. The Secret Service investigated 84 similar cases. That's 141 verified cases covering a total of 143 million data records owned by organizations around the world.

If this is all starting to sound hopeless, it isn't. The authors of the 2010 Data Breach Investigation Report offer many suggestions that every company with sensitive data should consider. Most of it doesn't stray too far from common sense: give access to sensitive information only to employees who need it, watch your access logs, encourage strong passwords, warn employees about installing rogue antivirus programs, and so on.

Even if you aren't involved with an organization that handles sensitive data, you need to know that the kinds of attacks documented by Verizon are getting larger and more complex.

You can help by regularly checking all of your online information that you can access, reporting any data or activity you see that's out of the ordinary. Immediately tell your bank, your credit card company, and your stock broker if you think something's gone awry.

As the report says, "Third-party fraud detection is still the most common way breach victims come to know of their predicament" — in other words, companies learn of breaches when customers report them.