Secure USB Drive

A new report has confirmed what we already suspected:  2008 was the worst year yet for data losses and breaches. 

 The US-based Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) has announced there were 646 data breach incidents reported in 2008, a 47% increase over 2007, which was the previous record for the most breaches in a single year.

 The ITRC believes the increase is partly a result of wider use of unsecured USB drives and other portable storage media.  These were the biggest type of incident, accounting for 135 breaches - more than the 91 hacking incidents, or the 95 cases of accidental distribution of data publicly on the Internet.

 Many of these breaches could have been prevented, simply by using secure memory sticks with mandatory encryption to protect data on the move.  And ‘insider’ breaches - where employees take data for unauthorised use - can be tracked and quickly addressed with the right type of centralised management software.

 Is it too much to hope that 2009 will see a reduction in data breaches, for a change?