Authors: Gordon-Rapkin: dbta.com

Biographical Information

Gordon Rapkin

Gordon Rapkin is president and CEO of Protegrity, a leading provider of data security management solutions. Protegrity delivers centralized data security management solutions that protect sensitive information from acquisition to deletion across the enterprise. For more information about Protegrity, go to www.protegrity.com.

Articles By Gordon Rapkin

Dispelling Data Encryption Myths: A Risk-Based Approach to Security Management

High-profile data breaches at major corporations and the usual assortment of state government agencies and educational institutions have highlighted the value of encrypting data. Yet, breach numbers continue to spike and big losses are becoming more common; according to Verizon's 2009 Data Breach Investigations Report, which looks only at breaches that resulted in stolen data being used in a crime, the total number of records breached in Verizon's 2008 caseload—more than 285 million—exceeded the combined total from 2004 to 2007. Apparently the market is now so saturated with stolen data that the price of each record has dropped from a high of $16 in 2007 to less than 50 cents today. But the intensifying number of successful attacks isn't the most distressing part of data breach reports: the Identity Theft Resource Center reports that only 2.4% of the companies involved in all reported breaches utilized encryption.

Posted 13 Oct 2009 / October 2009 Issue