Sam's Club Theft Puts the Cap on a Bad Year for Information Security: 2005 May Be the Worst Year for Reported Breaches in Data Security and Risk20 December 2005
Just before the start of the New Year, Sam's Club, a division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., announced a security breach that exposed the sensitive data of an unspecified number of its credit-card holders. Sam's Club became aware of the theft after some of its customers began reporting fraudulent charges on their credit cards.
The theft put the finishing touches on what may have been the worst year ever for information security breaches -- a year in which the sensitive financial records of more than 50 million Americans were exposed to the potential of identity theft, according to Warren Smith, VP of marketing for GuardianEdge Technologies Inc., a market leader in reducing the cost and complexity of network and data security for large organizations.
Other breaches that were reported in 2005 involved Bank of America, Mastercard, ChoicePoint, Lexis-Nexis, the University of California, Tufts University, Polo Ralph Lauren and numerous other public and private organizations. In all, at least 50 million Americans were affected, says Smith.
Identity theft is the deliberate and unauthorized use of another person's financial or social security information, usually to gain fraudulent access to bank or credit card accounts. According to Smith, data encryption is one of the most effective tools an organization can use to protect consumer data from this sort of risk. "However, consumer data is not the only type of critical business information that is vulnerable. Inspect the IT infrastructure of any major organization and you will likely find sensitive business information strewn around the perimeter of the enterprise on unsecured laptops, PDAs, smart phones and other mobile computing devices."
GuardianEdge provides data and network security solutions that protect sensitive and proprietary information in large enterprises. Organizations around the world use GuardianEdge solutions to protect sensitive and proprietary information, to ensure compliance with rules for safeguarding privacy, and to enable secure enterprise mobility. The company's solutions include Encryption Plus Hard Disk, which provides 100% full hard drive data encryption and access control, as well as the new Encryption Anywhere platform, a flexible, scalable framework for managing access to corporate data and devices -- including PCs, PDAs, smart phones and removable storage devices.
«Our job is to give IT and security administrators the tools they need to leverage the advantages of the mobile enterprise while protecting sensitive data and reducing compliance risk," says Smith.
Established in 1984, GuardianEdge is headquartered in San Francisco and serves an installed base of more than half a million active users at leading global corporate and governmental organizations, including Lockheed Martin Corp., Deutsche Bank AG and Humana Inc.
For more information, visit the GuardianEdge Web site at www.guardianedge.com
Source: prweb
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