“There was a statistician who drowned crossing a river… It was 3 feet deep on average”
People tend to talk about the typical, grouping the ups and downs together and taking the average as the only relevant measurement. Clearly, however, this does not truly reflect life’s reality and the reality of data loss.
Take IT security around mobile devices for example, we can look at the average number of devices left on Transport for London daily...
Laptops - 2.1 per day
USB Devices - 3.9 per day
Phones - 58.3 per day
Depending on the data stored on each device the potential impact will vary greatly. The real question is, do YOU know what would happen if one of those devices belonged to you and if it fell into the wrong hands?
So what’s your first line of defence?
Password protection, this is fine if the person who finds your device is not computer savvy, the harsh reality however is that the device is likely to find its way onto the black market, which has the means to crack passwords and wipe computers for easy onward re-sale.
The real danger comes when the value of the data on the device is worth more that the computer it is stored. This leaves the organisation open to ransom requests or liable to their reputation being damaged through the publication of data that is commercially or personally sensitive.
However there are ways to combat this such as:
Remote wipe
Mobile Device Management
Disk Encryption
Dual Factor Authentication
What a lot of organisations fail to protect however is the humble USB. ClearCrypt offer a range industry leading encryption to suit all needs and requirements with regards to usb’s.
So be better than average and protect your data!
