Maybe it shouldn’t surprise us anymore.  At Symagio, we understand that it’s a big, complicated IT world out there, and as hard as some people try, security precautions do slip through the cracks.  Computerworld reports that three separate laptops, each containing thousands of individual’s sensitive information, have been stolen in recent weeks.  Two of these were in use by the Department of the Navy, which reminds us of the recent Veteran’s Affairs scandal that compromised the identity security of thousands of our nation’s troops.  Despite the laudable effort on the part of numerous banks and financial institutions, such information in the wrong hands can wreak havoc on the unsuspecting individual. 

We recently Co-hosted a seminar at Telehouse International, and the crux of our presentation was returning to the basic importance of data.  Although we’ve spent decades becoming accustomed to its place in our everyday life, sometimes we forget its vulnerability.  It used to be that all our important information was physically written down and stored in multiple locations.  That was common-sense policy.  Now, however, we take for granted that when we power up our laptop, our files will be there.  Just ask some of our clients: data loss often happens when we least expect it. 

The good that can come of this recent wave of data breaches is awareness, pure and simple.  The Technology section of the Wall Street Journal has a feature on data security and data backup on what seems to be a bi-weekly basis, often with the same message: being just a little proactive about protecting your data can go a long way. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 27th, 2006 at 11:31 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.