Data Theft

Information, including customer, employee, supplier, and corporate data, is an organization's most valuable resource. The data held within organizational walls holds significant value for both the organization and for the individual to whom the information relates. If left unprotected, the result could be the loss of corporate competitive advantage and client confidence. The prevention costs of database security are most often negligible compared to the potential losses associated with privacy breaches. Even more detrimental are the breaches that ruin reputations, destroy trust, and damage brands.

Seventy Percent of Data Breaches Originate on the Inside

While many organizations have traditionally been concerned with data theft from external threats, research indicates that an estimated 70% of all security incidents come from within the organization. Moreover, not only are more data breaches coming from the inside, but the associated costs of such internal breaches are more than 50 times as costly when compared to external breaches. Internal data theft comes from a wide range of sources including disgruntled employees, outside contractors, employees helping outsiders, and careless employee mistakes. Oftentimes, these insiders have a higher level of knowledge of internal security systems and thus, are capable of causing significant damage to the organization.

Average Breach Costs Organizations $4.7 million

In cases of security breaches, organizations are subject to an abundance of severe costs and penalties. Research indicates that breaches cost organizations an average of $4.7 million and, in some cases, upwards of $22 million. Most often, the prevention costs associated with data theft are insignificant compared to the potential losses and negative outcomes associated with such breaches of privacy.

Legal Fines and Civil Lawsuits: With the recent establishment of strict privacy legislation, organizations are faced with harsh fines for non-compliance with privacy legislation and, as a result, suffer irreversible consequences. The potential for civil litigation against an organization that fails to protect the personal information of another party is also commonplace. Associated costs of a civil lawsuit include litigation and defense costs, as well as the substantial effort and time associated with the preparation of a defense. Financial Costs: Organizations facing a data breach face significant increased business expenditures including an increase in insurance and auditing costs, detection and notification expenses, as well as reimbursements to affected individuals. As the onus has shifted from legislative bodies to individual organizations, individuals within an organization may be faced with potential jail time, receive salary cutbacks, or suffer a loss of job as a result of data theft from their organization. Client Confidence: Not only does data theft cost organizations significant financial resources, it also causes detrimental outcomes such as ruining corporate reputations, destroying trust, and damaging brands. The outcome of a breach will negatively impact an organization's ability to attract future clients and revenues, eventually causing detrimental damage to the organization's future success.

Camouflage and Data Theft

Camouflage enforces 'need to know access' whereby access to sensitive information is limited to the few individuals who need to use real production data to undertake their related job responsibilities. To counteract data theft, Camouflage provides masked or de-identified data for those individuals who require realistic and fully functional data for use in non-production environments. Camouflage ensures that the information maintained and used within an organization's non-production environment is masked, and thus protected from internal sources of data theft. If a data thief passes through the organization's perimeter security measures and steals information from non-production environments that use Camouflage, the thieves will steal masked data, which for their intents and purposes, is entirely useless.