Loss of Millions of Private Records Preventable
PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE) - Gil Sever, the CEO of Safend, a leading provider of enterprise endpoint Data Leakage Prevention (DLP) solutions , offered his comments today on the latest and most serious report of a data breach in the United Kingdom. The breach, first reported Tuesday by the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7103566.stm, involves the loss of more than 25 million Child Benefit records that were stored on two computer disks. The disks were lost during transport from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to the National Audit Office (NAO) and contained information including name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and some banking data for families enrolled in the UK’s Child Benefit program.
“This is a glaring and unfortunate example of what happens when organizational policy is not followed and enforced and adequate technological safeguards are not utilized,” said Sever. “HMRC’s data security issue was twofold: first the information was stored on a vulnerable medium with inadequate protection. Secondly, there was no monitoring procedure to track or record where the data was going or how it was being accessed. Products to address these issues are commercially available, proven in the market and are simple to deploy and manage. Furthermore, data leakage prevention solutions can be deployed at a fraction of the cost that a security breach will cause to an organization with inadequate protection.”
According to a statement by Chancellor Alistair Darling of the House of Commons, the data breach occurred between October 18 and November 10. The theft of the disks is being investigated by Metropolitan Police and the data breach investigation is under the supervision of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
ABOUT SAFEND
Safend is a leading provider of endpoint data leakage prevention solutions that protect against corporate data loss via physical, wireless, and removable media ports while ensuring compliance with regulatory data security and privacy standards. With more than 500 customers worldwide, Safend Protector and Safend Auditor, are deployed by multinational enterprises, government agencies and small to mid-size companies across the globe. Founded in 2003, Safend is a privately held company funded by Elron Electronics (NASDAQ and TASE: ELRN), Intel Capital, and Walden Israel. Safend is headquartered in Tel Aviv with US headquarters in Philadelphia. For more information, visit www.safend.com.
Contacts
Safend
Leah Washington, +1 215-496-9646
leah@safend.com
or
Revell-Pechar, Inc.
Heather Lazenby, +1 678-910-7178
heather@revellpechar.com