Nowadays, you never quite know if your personal information is safe. You hear all kinds of stories about leaks and if falling into the wrong hands. For federal government employees, tough protection measures have been put in place, but even that isn’t enough sometimes. Whether is has been from mistakes or deliberately, employee information has found its way onto the internet and in publications.
Once this leaked information comes to the attention of the public it is often reported. This is often an embarrassment for the parties involved and a cause for concern because of privacy issues.
Hackers aren’t always to blame for data leaks, sometimes people can be careless. Their negligence or ignorance can allow information to get out.
One example involves social security numbers, which are issued to all Americans. Your social security number is important because it identifies you and it should be well-guarded as personal information. It can be misused if in the wrong hands.
Recently, details about a major lapse in security was released by the US Department of Justice. The agency accidentally published social security numbers on its web site. When the error was made known to the agency they removed the numbers but the damage was done. Their publication made them accessible to identity thieves. This incident shows that data leakage can happen anytime and not always by criminals.
But since people aren’t perfect we have to guard our information closely. Some one may release the information with no malice but it damages just the same.
One sure what to secure your personal data is to get it encrypted. Many companies and organizations fail to do this because it is expensive and complex to execute.
Whatever security measures you adopt to keep your personal information safe, you should do a test run to make sure you haven’t missed any loopholes. This will help keep out hacker and minimize human error. Train staff to handle data correctly so lapses don’t occur.
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Wed, Aug 4, 2010
Spyware