Executive Guide to Internal Data Theft

Another month, another fad. That’s how IT security can often appear to the business manager. There’s always some ‘crisis of the day’, whether it’s a new malicious computer virus, security vulnerability in Windows or spate of internal data leakages.

But through all of this, there is an inescapable trend that needs urgent attention from the board – the increasing threat of confidential data being removed from the network inside the organization through the use of removable media devices such as USB flash drives, ‘plug and play’ hard disks, PDAs and MP3 players.

But what can possibly be dangerous about the latest iPod? Good question. With 60GB of storage space, they’re great for any music fan that wants to carry their entire collection with them on the move. But what if that iPod isn’t used to carry songs, but instead has 60GB of your customer databases, financial records and HR files on it?
After all, an MP3 player is just a big hard disk.

Now consider that one of these devices can be connected to any PC on your network and used to copy hundreds, if not thousands, of sensitive files in a single minute without anyone noticing.

It might sound like James Bond fiction, but the risk is all too real.