Is your data safe?

If you are a consumer you may want to check some of the following.

If you are in IT, you may want to check your evidence logs.

Recent events involving the loss of theft of sensitive information – of those that are known or reported – include events that are reported to have hit the following organizations, among many others:

• Video Game Plus
• Catalog Retail Marketing International
• Beauty.nl
• City College of San Francisco
• Namesco Limited
• Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
• MDwise
• ANZ Bank
• Dreamhost

You can find more information on the above by searching on the names.

One of the more notable recent events is the huge data breach involving 24 million names, dates of birth, email addresses, phone numbers and passwords that occured at Zappos.com, an online shoe seller reportedly owned by Google.

You can find more information about the Zappos incident at USA Today and at: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-01-16/zappos-security-breach/52605292/1

For those living in the European Union, there are currently no requirements that data breaches be reported. As a result, no one in Europe really knows if a data-breached occurred – even though Europe has some of the toughest privacy laws on the books.

But, new legislation is brewing in the EU that may require notifications of data breaches within 24 hours of their occurrence. See the article at PC World and here: www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/248566/eus_data_protection_proposals_likely_to_include_24hour_breach_notification.htm

Hackers for Hire (cheap): It’s easy to hack or to find others to do your dirty work for you and according to a recent story in the Wall Street Journal, it’s also apparently rather affordable, depending on your perspective. For more information, see the Wall Street Journal article Hackers-for-Hire: Easy to Find and at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203471004577145140543496380.html

Check your data: And to finish this edition of “Where’s Your Data – Today?”, we suggest members of the Chamber of Commerce in the U.S. make sure they’ve checked and changed on-line account and identify information. See the Wall Street Journal article China Hackers Hit U.S. Chamber of Commerce and at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204058404577110541568535300.html