Home Depot Security Breach: Be Part of the Solution by Carol Genis

When I opened the mail today, I received an announcement from my credit card company: Here is your new credit card after the breach at Home Depot. The card had a new number, expiration date and three-digit security code. You may have received something similar. There seems to be a trend.

The Home Depot breach impacted 56 Million people, and this was only one of several major breaches this year. We started off 2014 with breaking news of a Neiman Marcus breach that impacted 350,000 people and a similar breach at the University of Maryland. Other breaches include Michael's, PF Chang's, eBay and Google. The list goes on, and we're only in October. What's next?

Data breaches are problematic for consumers, even when their identities are not compromised. In my case, the announcement with my new credit card was followed by an email with all of the various companies that I need to contact with my new number. This is time-consuming for me but it pales in comparison to the financial burden caused by a breach. According to the Ponemon Institute's 2014 Cost of Data Breach Study, the average cost of a data breach to a business is $3.5 million, and the corresponding cost of lost business is $3 million.

Data Center and IT Infrastructure Managers can be part of the solution. Many data center assets store confidential or personal information. These assets need to be carefully tracked throughout their lifecycle - from initial receipt to final disposition, and when they have met their useful life-decommissioned and securely destroyed or repurposed. A comprehensive IT asset management strategy is critical to ensure that information security is maintained and assets are disposed of properly.

This all sounds like a great idea - and it is to about 50 percent of IT leaders that recently responded to a SearchDataCenter.com survey. The other half of respondents acknowledge that they either don't have a formal plan in place or that their formal plan isn't widely followed throughout the organization.

When you select Iron Mountain Data Centers, you not only get the advantage of highly secure and resilient data center colocation but also a portfolio of services - such as Secure IT Asset Deposition. We can help you safely recycle or repurpose decommissioned IT assets - such as servers, racks, storage systems and networking components. When you colocate with Iron Mountain, you can protect your mission-critical assets with proven procedures, comprehensive security measures and a portfolio of compliant data center services.

In closing, I would encourage you think about your IT asset management strategy. Are you in the 50 percent who have a plan and follow it or a part of the 50 percent who do not? Addressing the issue now can potentially save your organization millions of dollars in the future.

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2014/service-lines/data-backup-and-recov...
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