Abir Thakurta
Senior Director, Professional Services
nuBridges
Earlier this week some nuBridges’ colleagues and I flew from Austin, Texas to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Within a matter of four hours we had gone from the hot ‘temperate’ zone where it was 87° F to a frozen (-6 °F) ‘tundra’ zone (as put forward by one of my esteemed colleagues). With obvious apologies to the Minnesotans who were going about their daily life with no chagrin, driving in the snow storm was a spine-chilling experience. However, it was not any more dispiriting than the local evening news carrying the story of a data security breach involving former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman.
Turns out that personal information on approximately 51,000 supporters and donors of Coleman’s was breached because the campaign Web site was not properly secured. Seems the former Senator’s campaign collected detailed information on every supporter and Web site visitor and retained unencrypted credit card information from donors, including their security codes, on the campaign's Web site. All that sensitive information was stored in a database file sitting in a directory exposed as plain text. Coleman's legal counsel cited a federal crime had been committed. Personally identifiable information and credit card numbers had been compromised. Needless to say, the senator’s supporters and donors are not happy.
A lot of political bickering and finger pointing is going on regarding this data security breach. But the underlying issue around data security is universal. Data security is increasingly becoming the topic of a majority of security conversations. But data security is also becoming the topic of conversation in the general public; for example, a fellow hotel guest of mine in Minneapolis was not very happy with the news because she had donated to Coleman’s campaign. Not just mandate-impacted businesses or security pundits, but individuals and consumers are also realizing the need for data security and they’re demanding it.
If sensitive data is compromised in today’s world, businesses will pay a much heavier price than the cost of investing in data protection strategies. Yes, we have indeed gone beyond data security for compliance and moved to data security for good corporate citizenship. Very soon the ‘it can’t happen to us’ mentality will also transform into ‘let’s get better at keeping our data secure.’
As an advocate for data security, I couldn’t feel more positive -- I may have experienced a drastic change in climate in four hours. But the commitment to invest in data security was the same whether in hot Austin or cold Minneapolis. The flourishing retailer in Austin is thinking about it; the booming home shopping cataloger in Minneapolis is figuring out how to implement it; the respected former Minnesota Senator is experiencing the aftermath of not thinking about it.
Data security can’t be ignored . . . and very soon our fellow citizens will mandate it . . .
What are you doing about this issue? I’d love to hear from you.
Thanks for reading,
Abir
