A Dark View on Breaches Inside and Out

Bank Technology News | March, 2010

Jobbing out data to third parties such as tech vendors is a big contributor to data breaches at financial firms, says the Ponemon Institute. But the picture on insider breaches and protective measures is no great shakes, either.

The institute performed a Compuware-funded survey of senior security staff at 80 multinational financial institutions, and found that negligent insiders are the main reason for data breaches, reported by 75 percent of the respondents. The second most common cause is the outsourcing of data, cited by 42 percent.

Other numbers were even more daunting. About 83 percent of the respondents still use real data in the development and testing of applications, and a majority of those firms do not take appropriate steps to protect this data. Additionally, only 56 percent have identity compliance procedures in place, while 47 percent have intrusion detection systems.

Data loss protection technology is used by 41 percent, while 88 percent still use social security numbers as a primary identifier for consumer data sets.

The report also found that nearly two thirds of organizations have a chief privacy officer, but half of these execs say they don’t have proper resources to meet their goals.