Frost & Sullivan’s Study On Data Leaks

Andy Beal — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:29:43 +0000

A new study from Frost & Sullivan suggests companies have a new enemy to face, in their battle to protect their online reputation–their own data leaks.

According to CNET:

Indeed, three-fourths of the information security professionals around the world surveyed by Frost & Sullivan say they now consider avoiding reputation damage to their organizations as a top priority.

Have you looked at your own data security recently? How do you collect customer information? What policies do you have in place to prevent your CEO leaving a laptop–loaded with client social security numbers–sitting in a cafe?

It’s not just poor customer service or defective products that can kill customer loyalty. Just the perception that you’ve mishandled sensitive customer information could enough to damage your reputation–and send customers to your rival.

The survey included responses from more than 7,500 IT security experts.

Comments

School Records Discovered Sitting On Google

Doug Caverly — Fri, 18 May 2007 20:07:18 +0000

It’s happened before, and now it’s happened again – the records of some schoolchildren became available to anyone and everyone using Google. The security lapse has now been resolved (sort of), but it’s possible that the records were sitting unprotected for as long as two years.

Andy Gamill of The Indianapolis Star writes that he “found information on at least 7,500 students and some staff members, including phone numbers, birth dates, medical information and Social Security numbers.” And, in case you didn’t know, “Such student information is required to be kept private under federal law.”

In the past, such gaffes have gotten Google sued – take the case that involved a North Carolina school and an unfortunately named judge, for example. Yet the Indiananapolis public school system seems less quick to blame the search engine giant; when Superintendent Eugene White spoke to Gamill, he appeared to take responsibility for the problem.

“We will protect this information in the future,” White said. “This matter has received the highest priority of the district, and the IT department has made the necessary changes.”

That’s a nice, mature attitude, but there’s still a chance that this could go to court, as Gamill noted that “duplicate versions” of the compromised records remained available on Google (after the schools had patched up their systems). Google’s not to blame for the original leak, but it should probably – for the positive PR, if nothing else – help clean it up in a timely manner.

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Frost & Sullivan’s Study On Data Leaks

School Records Discovered Sitting On Google