Unencrypted Backup Data Leads to Identity Theft!

The University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics is in the process of warning about 2.2 million patients that their personal information may have been exposed to identity thieves. Backup tapes of billing information was stolen from a car owned by a driver for an off site storage company. Just three months earlier, the University of Miami had backup tapes stolen from a van containing patient records.

If these backup tapes were properly encrypted, then lost or stolen tapes have far less impact. In fact, I think it is incompetent to store sensitive data on any portable media that is not encrypted. Any backup software worth using has the capability to encrypt the backup data. One of the simplest ways to secure backup data is to use a secure online backup service. If you are going to use an online service, you will want to make sure the service is using good security technology.

Many businesses should take data security to whole new level and encrypt the data on workstations and portable computers. It's not just backup tapes that get stolen. Computers, especially portable computers, are often stolen. It is not feasible to stop all thefts of computers, hard disks, and backup media, but it is not very difficult to protect the data by using encryption.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Nowadays, many cloud storage vendors are using advance data encryption techniques, antivirus scanning procedures, data backup techniques, and other security solutions that a personal computing environment cannot offer. By keeping important data in the cloud, you can save it from all the major threats such as environmental threats, unauthorized users, technical failures and malicious software.
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iDeals said...

It is crucial for business of all sizes to develop comprehensive policies to protect the personal information they are trusted with.