2011 has been the year of the IT security breach. Big and small organisations around the world ranging from major corporations like Sony through to smaller businesses such as security analysts Stratfor found their customer data released onto the web.
The frustrating this is most of these breaches are avoidable and “hacking” is often giving too much credit for the security used by the targeted companies.
While the ‘hackers’ themselves may be skilled, the compromised organisations are often easy targets as they don’t follow the basic rules of protecting their data.
Standards matter
Customer payment account details are covered by the Payment Cards Industry -Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) operated by the PCI Security Standards Council.
The PCI Security Standards Council helpfully has a range of information sheets for merchants of all sizes and if you are taking payments off the web you should make yourself aware of the basic requirements.
For most businesses, the cardinal rule is not to save customer’s card details. Once the payment is approved, you have no business retaining the client’s credit card or bank account numbers.
In Stratfor’s case, they were almost certainly processing payments manually and credit card details were being saved on customers’ records in case of errors or to make renewals easier.
Call in the professionals
There’s no shortage of payment companies, ranging from PayPal through specialist services like eWay to your own bank’s services. Choose the one that works best for you. If you have no idea, call in someone who does.
One of the arguments for using outsourced services, particularly cloud computing, is how data security is a complex field that requires professional and qualified expertise. The internal systems of Sony, Telstra and Stratfor were not up to the demands placed upon. A professional service is better equipped to deal with these issues.
Size doesn’t matter
A major lesson from the last year’s security breaches is that it’s not just the local shop or garage e-commerce business that is careless with data. Some of the world’s biggest companies and government agencies have been compromised.
If anything, Sony’s experience has shown the double standards at work in the application of security rules; there’s no doubt that had a local computer shop been as thoroughly compromised as Sony were, they would have been shut down on the second breach and the management would have been carted off to jail well before the twelfth.
For the management of Sony, there seems to have been little in the way of sanctions of the people nominally responsible for this incompetence. This has to change both within organisations and by those charged with enforcing the rules.
The lesson for customers is you can’t trust anyone with your data; don’t assume the big corporation is any more secure than the serving staff at your local sandwich shop.
Passwords matter
Every time one of these breaches happen we hear about password security, with “experts” pointing out that some of the subscribers were using passwords like ‘statfor’ or ‘password’.
For customers, this actually makes sense if you can’t trust third parties with your details so specific, disposable passwords for each site should be used. There’s little point in having a complex password if some script kiddie is going to post your login details onto 4Chan.
Naturally your passwords for banking and other critical websites should be very different and far more secure than those you use for sites like Stratfor and the Sony Playstation Network.
Will 2012 be any different?
Given the data embarrassments of 2012 for businesses and government agencies, can we expect lessons to be learned in 2012?
While many businesses are going to learn specific lessons from these breaches, there’s a management cultural problem where any spending on information systems is seen as a cost that has to be minimised.
This cost cutting mentality lies at the core at many organisations’ failure to secure their systems properly and until a more responsible culture develops we’ll continue to see these lapses.
Good managers and business owners who understand the importance of guarding their organisation’s and customer’s data are those who are ahead of their competition. Over time, these folk who will have the competitive advantage.
For customers, the sad lesson is we can’t trust anyone and a layered approach to security along with keeping a close eye on our bank accounts and credit card statements is necessary.