Data Loss Prevention Trends To Watch In 2008

By Stefanie Hoffman, CMP Channel

No doubt about it, 2007 was the year that high profile data breaches splashed across the front pages with as much sensation as paint on a Jackson Pollock canvas. TJX kicked off 2007 with the largest data breach in history — a whopping 45.7 million records lifted when hackers infiltrated the company’s network over a period of 18 months. And other large-scale losses, such as a phishing scam at a military research lab and the misplacement of two unencrypted U.K government disks — followed in its wake.

Experts say this is just the tip of the iceberg. Since January 2005, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has identified more than 215 million records belonging to U.S. residents that have been compromised due to a security breach.

The costs of these and other breaches have weighed heavily on the organizations that are impacted. A recent study conducted by the Ponemon Institute determined that the total average costs for lost or exposed data grew to $197 per compromised record, representing an increase of 8 percent since 2006 and 43 percent since 2005. Currently, the average total cost for companies is more than $6.3 million per breach, which accounts for increased legal and public relations costs as well as lost business. And experts warn that the amount of lost revenue a company experiences in the wake of a data breach will only continue to grow.

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