75 Percent of Organizations Wrongly Believe They Protect Sensitive Data

Nearly three-quarters of organizations believe they have adequate policies in place to protect sensitive, personal information, yet more than half have lost sensitive data within the past two years — and nearly 60 percent of those organizations acknowledge data loss as a recurring problem, according to findings of a global study released today by Accenture.

The study — which surveyed more than 5,500 business leaders and 15,500 adult consumers in 19 countries — reveals a startling difference between organizations’ intentions regarding data privacy and how they actually protect sensitive personal information, such as name, address, date of birth, race, National ID/social security number and medical history. The study was conducted in conjunction with the Ponemon Institute, an independent privacy, protection and information security research firm. Click here to view the full report.

Along these same lines, more than 353.8 million records containing sensitive personal information have been leaked in security breaches since the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse began tracking them in January, 2005. The nonprofit privacy advocate has compiled an extensive list of every known breach, along with the number of records exposed with each security breach. The list ends with an unknown number of leaks as a result of the latest Blippy breach. Read the full VentureBeat article on this here.

These findings underscore the simple fact that data breaches happen – not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when — every day and come from many sources. The scary reality is that there is often no way to know if the information has fallen into criminal hands, exposing your company to potential liability, customer loss and damage to your corporate brand. Fortunately, ITAC Sentinel allows organizations to protect ther customers and employees from the risk of identity theft in the event of an information security breach – no matter how large or small.