Data Leaks For Dummies®

Chapter 6. The Price of Your Data to Others

In This Chapter

• Imagining who would be interested in buying your data

• Estimating how much your data is worth on the black market

• Bulk-buying data

• Observing how the value of data changes over time

We know that your data is valuable to you. If it isn't, then, "Note to self: Delete the stuff that isn't valuable."

Tip

Just because a particular bit of data doesn't appear useful now doesn't mean that it isn't useful. Useful information must include (for example) information about litigation, and all those project-related facts and figures that you would normally just archive. Keep that stuff, but encrypt as you go. Skip the rubbish (information on the level of "Hey John, did you catch the game last night?") if you can. If you work in the IT department, then it probably isn't your call to start deleting information or data. But that's where you need a policy and probably technology that covers discovering, monitoring, managing, encrypting, and (when appropriate) deleting data in the course of archiving it. (After all, in the middle of 2007 the world ran out of storage-disk space for a while. Deleting stuff is a must.)

Note

If it's valuable to you, then it's also valuable to someone else (who may not mean you well):

• Competitors: If they could get their hands on your customer list they could market directly to them. If they have your pricelist they can price their products lower. If they have your innovations their products could become more innovative than ...