While some may consider it media sensationalism, data breaches are a real threat. It’s not just about cybercrime, but about collateral damage, stealing secrets, and disrupting operations. In talking about cyber safety, there’s “in-flight” data and data at rest. In the case of data-in-flight, data is moving through a communications media such as a copper wire, optical cable or even air, such as with wireless communications. Data at rest refers to data that has been written to a media such as a disk drive, tape cartridge, or CD. How safe is this data, really?
According to Ciena’s data breach infographic, there was a 25 percent increase in breached records from 2013-2014. The causes of data breach vary; 47 percent are malicious, whereas 29 percent are system glitches, with 25 percent resulting from human error.
Perhaps the most disconcerting fact about data breaches is how much they cost. The average organizational cost is $3.79 million, a figure that includes customer churn as a result of the data breach, reputation costs, and diminished goodwill.
Avoiding data breaches requires the proper identification and classification of confidential information inside the organization, the education of employees, the deployment of data loss prevention technologies and enforcing strict access controls.
One way to combat data breaches is using protective solutions, such as Ciena’s WaveLogic Encryption for in-flight data. What exactly does it do and how does it help?
“It’s purpose-built to deliver an easy-to-deploy, protocol-agnostic, always-on encryption solution that protects all in-flight data, all of the time. Service providers can continue to offer differentiated encrypted services as they have in the past but now they can leverage a differentiated highly secure infrastructure,” according to Ciena.
Digital information technologies and the emergence of new services, although beneficial to consumers, also represent a major challenge to consumers’ rights to privacy and protection of their personal data. It is important to provide consumers with a secure digital environment that they can trust, including effective control of how and when data is stored, used, and protected.
The duty to protect data goes beyond even the personal information. For certain companies, it includes patents, concepts and ideas that could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. Ultimately, the list of information that requires protection can be quite large.
With so much at risk, why take chances when you can proactively protect your data and the data of your consumers?
Edited by Rory J. Thompson