Breach Announcements

There seems to be an epidemic of companies announcing breaches of private and sensitive customer and employee information these days.

Non-Profit Organizations Tracking Breaches

The problem of sensitive data breach has become so widespread that two non-profit organizations have begun actively tracking publically announced data breaches in the United States.

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse

Attrition.org Data Loss Database

Identity Theft Resource Center

Take a moment to review these web sites. The sheer quantity of data being exposed and the list of well known companies exposing this data is quite unsettling.

What does FTP have to do with Breaches?

FTP is great at providing access to data and transmitting data from one computer to another.  It creates a security challenge however, one that many companies have not taken the time to address yet. Unmanaged FTP exposes a company to compromising sensitive corporate and/or customer data. FTP usage needs to be audited and monitored to ensure that inadvertent breaches to not take place.

What does a Breach Cost?

The Ponemon Institute, a well-respected privacy consultancy interviewed companies that announced breaches of the past few years and calculated that a breach cost approximately $197.00 per compromised record.

Darwin Professional Underwriters Inc. has released a free online calculator that it said allows businesses to estimate -- with a fair degree of accuracy -- their financial risk from data breach.

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse

Attrition.org Data Loss Database

Cost of a Breach Estimator

2007: Cost of a Data Breach (Ponemon Institute)