Data breaches have moved into the forefront of the public eye in the past year, driven by a consistent stream of new events that highlight just how behind the average organization is in preparation and defense strategies. Information exposure has fueled the rising rate of identity theft, which is among the most significant and damaging crimes in the United States and on the global scale, costing economies hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
Especially right now when the U.S. and international community are still fighting back from the grasps of one of the worst recessions in history, having these types of unnecessary financial strains is simply not doing the world's businesses, consumers and governments any good. The fact that a wealth of the most significant data breaches that took place in the past year could have been avoided should be a source of frustration for all those impacted in the wake of the events.
Studies are indicating that while businesses continue to allocate more of their budgets toward stronger IT security solutions such as email encryption software and data center services, decision-makers might not be thinking in the right way. As is the case with any significant problem, throwing money flippantly at the perceived issue is not going to solve the problem, yet organizational leaders in the public and private sectors continue to take this strange approach to improvements.
Rather than wasting money on solutions that will simply not work to the benefit of a given company, leaders should be focusing their efforts on the evaluation of needs and objectives, then aligning their investment decisions with these matters in real time. This will help to ensure that purchases of items such as email security and secure cloud services will work to the utmost benefit of the firm, protecting it from some of the dangers that are floating around the World Wide Web.
Jimmy John's: Great name, terrible press My Fox Detroit recently reported that Jimmy John's, a national restaurant chain that operates in several states, has admitted it fell victim to a significant data breach which might have impacted as many as 18 locations in Michigan alone. One of the biggest problems the firm is facing in the wake of this event is not actually related to the gravity of the information exposure, but actually the time it took for officials to notify customers about the potential exposure of their data.
According to the news provider, the chain's officials stated that they have been aware of the event for roughly two months, yet they just made that information public. Remember, the most damaging breaches tend to be the ones that are not swiftly reconciled by the victimized company, which is why so many states have enacted stringent data breach notification standards to ensure that potentially endangered consumers are alerted to the problem more quickly.
Other sources are beginning to investigate this breach and try to nail down a specific number regarding how many credit cards might have been compromised during the months when the systems were infiltrated. At the end of the day, though, another source of damage will likely be attached to the violation of notification standards, which would potentially result in a massive fine and potential sanctions.
Home Depot's headaches
In what has been one of the stranger stories regarding data security and breaches in recent memory, Home Depot is still wading through all of the headaches from a major breach a few weeks ago. This has been an odd chain of events because so many have argued the breach will not be as damaging to the company as the event that took place last winter was to Target, despite the fact that Home Depot exposed far more consumers' information.
The National Law Journal reported that Home Depot is now beginning to field a stream of lawsuits by impacted customers, of which there have already been 15 confirmed litigation proceedings. According to the source, roughly 56 million individuals are believed to have been affected by the breach, while the firm has accrued in excess of $62 million in damages at this stage in the game, and that number is sure to rise significantly as the months progress.
As was the case in the Target breach, consumers are unifying to levy class action lawsuits against Home Depot, while other groups are likely to get involved in the process, especially consumer privacy advocates. At the end of the day, many of these negative impacts can at least be minimized through more effective security management and preparations.
By investing in email monitoring, data center security and encryption services now, organizations can at least be better off when an attack takes place in their systems.
David Bailey is Senior Vice President at Protected Trust.
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