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07.12.06
Laptops Lag In Data Security
 By
Doug Caverly
How many laptops containing "sensitive person data" have been stolen in the past few months...
And how many panicky false alarms have there been? I've honestly lost count.
The incidents have led a number of people to question the wisdom of putting such information on laptops in the first place.
Steve Van Wyk, the chief information officer at ING, spoke to the Associated Press about managing data.
"The ability to control it and protect it may be best if it's centralized," he said. "Why even go through the vulnerability?" Many people, of course, find it more convenient to work on files offlines.
But that's not a valid excuse in the opinion of Avivah Litan, a security analyst for Gartner.
"It's pure laziness," she remarked in the article. "There's actually no excuse for it. There's no good business reason for it." Indeed, Wyk believed it "can be costlier for the company to make sure back-office files and mobile data are in sync."
John Clancy, an executive vice president at the data-management company Iron Mountain, also commented on the issue.
"There's some powerful forces working against (data) centralization," he said. "The genie's already out of the bottle. The information is already out there . . . . The challenge now is, the stakes are getting higher."
Identity theft, lawsuits, loss of customers, and all other sorts of things can result from incidents of data theft.
It would be in the best interests of everyone to ensure that personal information is kept as safe as possible.
And in most cases, that is going to preclude keeping the data on laptops.
About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.
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