HEADLINE: Health data thefts a continuing problem

We saw this headline today and we could not agree more. It appears through our research and the research of other firms that health related data is selling for a premium over credit card and other PII. It's no surprise the healthcare, insurance and medical establishments are large targets for hackers and malicious actors.

While we continue to see more breach data and news every day the good news is that people are starting to become aware. There are several data breach mandatory notification bills pending in congress and the number of businesses asking for audits is increasing. We remind clients that audits alone won't stop you from being attacked. What is required is proper training for your personnel, the correct security configurations in software and hardware devices, monitoring software, highly trained security monitoring staff and continued training and upgrades to security infrastructure.

While this headline caught our attention we should remind people that intellectual data theft occurs more often than actual data breaches yet companies fail to protect themselves against this threat. A company needs good people, a good security plan and procedures, auditing, training, monitoring and the right hardware and software to assist them in securing their valued data. And don't think that networks are the only place hackers attack. Don't forget to secure PBX systems, Personnel from social network attacks through verification procedures, cell phone and mobile devices through software and proper policy and anything else that could possibly be used to move data out of your organization. You do have a policy on thumb drives right? We know of one company that will fire on the spot any employee that is caught with any type of device capable of storing data (that includes cell phones, thumb drives, recordable media and cameras).

Maybe it's time the rest of us started protecting our data as this company does. What do you think?