Kroll Fraud Solutions Blog – A Dialogue on Data Security

This Friday, January 28, is Data Privacy Day – marking an international celebration, with people and businesses all over the world participating in events and initiatives. Data Privacy Day raises consumer awareness about the growing difficulties of protecting sensitive information and keeping it private. We called this day to readers’ attention last year, and later noticed an entry at the Data Privacy Day blog calling attention to an insightful article written by Jay Cline, President of Minnesota Privacy Consultants, that’s titled “The Top 5 Mistakes of Privacy Awareness Programs.” The blog issued a challenge to establish a training program if your company doesn’t already have one, and to maintain it permanently.

The Ponemon Institute recently released its annual study on data breach for 2009, Cost of a Data Breach: Understanding Financial Impact, Customer Turnover, and Preventive Solutions.* For the fifth straight year, the average cost of a data breach increased – to $204 per compromised record, increasing the average organizational cost of a data breach to $6.75 million. But perhaps the most compelling departure from the average is within the healthcare industry.