Information Governance: Concepts, Strategies, and Best Practices

CHAPTER 11

Information Governance and Privacy and Security Functions

Privacy and security go hand in hand. Privacy cannot be protected without implementing proper security controls and technologies. Organization must make not only reasonable efforts to protect privacy of data, but they must go much further as privacy breaches are damaging to its customers, reputation, and potentially, could put the company out of business.

Breaches are increasingly being carried out by malicious attacks, but also a significant source of breaches is internal mistakes caused by poor information governance (IG) practices, software bugs, and carelessness. The average cost of a data breach in 2013 was over $5 million dollars, according to the Ponemon Institute,¹ but some spectacular breaches have occurred, such as the $45 million in fraudulent automated teller machine cash withdrawals in New York City within hours in early 2013, and the 110 million customer records breached at giant retailer Target in late 2013. Millions of breaches occur each year: There were an estimated 354 million privacy breaches between 2005 and 2010 in the United States alone.

Cyberattacks Proliferate

Online attacks and snooping continue at an increasing rate. Organizations must be vigilant about securing their internal, confidential documents and e-mail messages. In 2011, security experts at Intel/McAfee “discovered an unprecedented series of cyber attacks on the networks of 72 organizations globally, including the United ...