Data breaches and the protection of mission-critical data continue to be the most pressing concerns for both businesses and the U.S. government. While the government sector has remained committed to making investments to prevent such threats from happening, it seems that all-too-often another report surfaces about an agency falling victim to a data breach. I recently read an article written by Josh Hicks and Alice Crites of the Washington Post titled “A brief history of federal network breaches and other information-security problems”.
The article highlights nine data breaches within the U.S. Government that go back to 2006, and how these have affected government employees, military, veterans as well as the general population. The graph from the GAO report (below) highlights the increase in U.S. Government data breaches over the last five years. The number of data breaches involving Personally Identifiable Information (PII) at federal agencies more than doubled in recent years, increasing from 10,481 in 2009 to 25,566 in 2013.
bTrade Can Help You Secure Your Data
Although this blog was centered on the federal government, its message rings true for all industries. A data breach should not be common or recurring. Protect your organization by deploying a data encryption solution that can securely and effectively transmit, store and manage confidential data. Please email us at info@btrade.com to learn how bTrade solutions can help keep your data secure.
Next month, The Department of Homeland Security will be kicking off Cybersecurity Month to promote data security awareness both in the consumer and business sectors. We will be updating our MFT Nation community with the latest cyber and data security tips, so stay tuned.