The familiar line from World War II is as relevant today as it was 65 years ago. The release of confidential information can have a devastating impact on an organization. In the normal course of doing business critical information will leak out into the wild. This may occur intentionally or unintentionally, but either way it is critical to know that a breach occurred at the earliest possible moment. Data Loss Detection enables companies to routinely perform customized profile searches that detect specific information on internet sites. The search crawler detects confidential data, files, posts and discussions that should not be in the public domain.
A recent search detected discussions on a non-disclosed merger of two public companies. Another search found an Excel spreadsheet containing the current quarter’s financial data and Microsoft Outlook archive files posted on a P2P file sharing website.
As new federal and state privacy notification laws go into effect it will be imperative to have documented procedures for protecting against intentional or unintentional release of confidential data.
photo credit NZ History