“A great year for data thieves”

Recently a report from the Verizon Buisness RISK Team was released showing that over 285 million records were stolen last year, which is more then the past 4 years combined.

How was all this data lost and was it preventable? According to this report, 99% of it was from compromised servers and applications, 20% of that was from insiders within the company and 87% of the losses were easily preventable. The majority of the organizations, some 81%, weren’t even PII compliant.

"We find that many organizations achieve very high levels of security in numerous areas but neglect others," wrote Verizon. "Criminals will almost always prefer the easier route. Identifying a set of essential controls and ensuring their implementation across the organization without exception, and then moving on to more advanced controls where needed is a superior strategy against real-world attacks."

Read report here:
http://www.verizonbusiness.com/resources/security/reports/2009_databreach_rp.pdf