USA Today: Personal data theft triples

The theft of personal data has tripled, according to a new piece by USA Today. More than 162 million records were reported stolen or lost in 2007, triple the 49.7 million that went missing in 2006. And to make the loss even more painful, there have only been prosecutions in 19 cases. So what is a CIO to do? Work harder. Find more secure ways of protecting your data and test new tools that provide impenetrable firewalls for hackers.

As they "cram more and more data into a single place," companies and agencies present thieves with more opportunities for a big score, says Benjamin Jun, vice president of technology at Cryptography Research. Attrition.org keeps track of incidents, mostly in the United States. Many are made public as a result of new data-loss-disclosure laws.  Of more than 300 cases tracked in 2007, 261 were reported in the USA, 16 in Great Britain, 15 in Canada, six in Japan, two in Australia, and one each in Denmark, Ireland, Sweden and Norway. Sometimes, but not always, employees are responsible for these data thefts with their own thoughtlessness. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed by security firm RSA, said they email work home to continue the job at night. And 35 percent said they felt compelled to bend company security rules to get the job done. While the CIO's may not see their role as a security guard, in a way they are. And the sooner they realize they have an added responsibility to protect what they have in-house, the more successful they will be.

For more on the growth of data theft:
- See this USA Today Article