Isn’t it great to get information that’s valuable from spam email? Here’s one sent to me by Guardian Edge–totally unasked for–that I thought had an engaging lead.

Is your data encrypted?
A data breach can happen to the best of us. In fact, the top five recent endpoint data exposures reads like a Who’s-Who of major corporations and government agencies.

1. National Archives and Records Administration: 76 million veterans records stored on improperly disposed hard drives
2. US Department of Veterans Affairs: names, social security numbers, and dates of birth of 26.5 million US military veterans and their dependents stolen
   (read more detail on how they are avoiding further breaches)
3. HM Revenue and Customs (agency responsible for taxation in the UK): Two CDs containing personal details of 25 million people go missing
4. T-Mobile: lost a disk containing data on 17 million customers
5. GS Caltex: names, social security numbers, and addresses of 11 million people found on lost disks

These five alone total 127 million records lost. At an estimated $202 per record lost, that leaves the unfortunate IT staff responsible for those systems with $26 billion of explaining to do.

What are you doing to protect against data loss in your school district? How are you encrypting confidential data and preventing it from walking out the door?

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure