It’s become common to hear about widespread identity theft and hackers infiltrating sensitive information systems. Even though it’s impossible to know how many hackers are lurking in the cyber shadows, it certainly seems like the problem is on the rise.
For consultants, who must routinely dole out their personal information to facilitate travel, make purchases for clients, and manage their businesses, identity theft looms as a potentially crippling problem. That’s why it was especially alarming to read a recent study of 5,550 businesses by Accenture on the issue of data privacy and security.
According to the study, nearly 75 percent of organizations claim they have adequate policies in place to protect sensitive personal information. Yet more than half have lost sensitive data within the past two years. What’s worse, almost 60 percent of those organizations acknowledge that data loss is an ongoing problem.
The study goes on to report that the biggest causes of data loss are internal–not the result of some vast hacker conspiracy to steal people’s personal data. For example, business or system failures (57 percent) and employee negligence or errors (48 percent) were cited most often as the source of the breaches. Cyber crime was cited as the cause of only 18 percent of security breaches.
Maybe you’ve already confronted the specter of identity theft and have taken steps to protect yourself. If not, you should revisit how you’ve secured your personal information. Why? Because the companies you’re handing that data over to aren’t doing a very good job of safeguarding it for you.
About Michael W. McLaughlin
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