Good News on the Security Front?

I was reading an article today and I thought it had some great information on data breaches and overall security issues.  The article highlights some findings from a study conducted by Verizon Business and the United States Secret Service. Some of the more interesting bits were the drop in breaches from 2008 to 2009, and the drop in prices for stolen data on the black market.

The piece also presents a bit of a conundrum with properly securing your ecosystem. It attributes most security breaches to easily fixed problems. To quote, “Specifically, 85% of attacks were not considered to be highly difficult, 86% of victims had evidence of the breach in their log files, and 96% of breaches were avoidable through simple or intermediate controls.” However, with the strict level that companies are held to with maintaining secure and sensitive data, can enterprises ever be too safe when taking measures to avoid compromising data?

Is Data More Expensive in the US?

According to the Ponemon Institute, data breaches cost US companies much more than their European counterparts. This brief highlights much of the findings and also raises some interesting questions about the effect federal regulations have on that cost.

Check it out and tell us how you feel about federal regulations and their potential effects on the total cost of a data breach.