Linda McGlasson of bankinfosecurity.com reports: There have been 171 reported data breaches so far in 2010, and 20 of these involve financial services companies. This means that in less than one quarter of the year, we already have seen nearly one-third of the 62 banking-related breaches reported in all of 2009. The rest of the…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
Aronberg expresses concern over security of state employee data
Bill Cotterell reports from Florida: A lawmaker Thursday demanded to know how a $248-million personnel contract got renewed with a Convergys operation recently sold to a British firm. The Department of Management Services assured Sen. David Aronberg that security of state employee data, and operation of Tallahassee and Jacksonville service centers, will continue unchanged. Aronberg,…
Audit: Some sensitive data at ISU not adequately secured
Kurt Erickson reports: State auditors say lax security at Illinois State University could have allowed university credit card accounts, personal health information and employee Social Security numbers to get into the wrong hands. In a report on the university’s financial practices for the year ending in June 2009, Illinois Auditor General Bill Holland said auditors…
Wickenburg Unified School District struggles to secure sensitive student data
Pat Kossan reports that data security in the Wickenburg Unified School District was found seriously lacking in a state audit: Wickenburg Unified School District has not secured its computer system containing sensitive student data, including student addresses, birth dates and Social Security numbers, state auditors found. Staffers from the Arizona Office of the Auditor General…
Analyst Study Shows Employees Continue to Put Data at Risk
From the press release, results of the annual “Human Factor in Laptop Encryption” study by Absolute Software and the Ponemon Institute: This year’s expanded study was conducted in the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany and Sweden, in addition to the United States. The study found that 15% of German and 13% Swedish business managers have…
Voluntary Breach Disclosure Rare But Valuable
Kelly Jackson Higgins writes: Google’s and Adobe’s disclosure in January that they had been hit by the same wave of targeted attacks were rare voluntary revelations, the likes of which may never be seen again: Most companies won’t disclose an attack unless required to by law or regulations. But security experts and forensics investigators say…