Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Debate growing over data security - baltimoresun.com When Johns Hopkins officials announced this week that a courier had lost nine backup computer tapes containing personal data on 135,000 employees and patients, security specialists were critical, even though the information probably was destroyed without being compromised. The reaction came not just because the tapes were lost, but because they weren't encrypted -- coded so that they could be read only with a computerized key. "Have we not learned from history yet, that if you're going to give [data] to a third party that you either encrypt or password protect it?" said Linda Foley, executive director of the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego. Amid a spate of lost or stolen data, some organizations and industries have begun taking steps to better protect employee and customer information, yet far too many have not, privacy advocates say. Many still leave sensitive information uncoded or hand it off to sometimes-careless employees or third parties. This year alone, Social Security numbers were posted on a public Web site at the University of Nebraska; personal information on 537 people was stolen from the New York Department of Labor; a hacker accessed Social Security numbers for more than 1,200 people at the University of Missouri; and a laptop was stolen that contained medical records for 1,100 patients at the Salina Regional Health Center in Kansas. Some consultants say that costs keep organizations from updating their security practices -- encryption software and developing privacy procedures can be expensive. But the No. 1 reason is complacency, according to Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, in Washington. "They don't see themselves as being in a position where they're going to lose something," Coney said. 8:40:57 PM

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