Strategic Security: Privacy Compliance Suites

Do you know the whereabouts of every drop of personally identifiable information (PII) on employees and partners as well as customers? Not likely. PII has seeped into the fabric of enterprise business processes and systems. Protecting it has thus far meant drowning in point products that attack the problem in narrowly focused ways, with little hope of integration. It's an expensive and time-consuming response to a situation created, in large part, by expensive and poorly designed OSs and applications that play fast and loose with sensitive data.

The next step in the evolution of PII protection? Robust, enterprise-ready PCSs (privacy compliance systems) that deliver a broad array of features and data-vector coverage and provide for integration at key points with other security technologies, encryption systems in particular.

Yes, we are suggesting you add yet another layer of security. The problem of peripatetic PII is real, it's not going away, and it's costing companies of all sizes serious money. We could join the chorus trumpeting the number of records lost during the most recent large-scale PII debacle, but instead, consider this: In September 2006, National Union Fire Insurance Co. began offering small and midsize companies a "Corporate Identity Protection" policy that, in case of a data security breach, will cover legal liability expenses, defense costs, regulatory action expenses, notification costs, crisis expenses and even post-event services such as assistance and credit monitoring for customers or clients who were harmed.