The Online Trust Alliance (OTA) reports that the overwhelming majority of high-profile US data breaches could have been prevented by sticking to a dozen security practices.
OTA formed as an informal industry working group in 2005. Now a non-profit with a global footprint, it’s supported by over 100 organisations (including a few recognisable Australian brands). Its mission is to ‘enhance online trust and empower users, while promoting innovation and the vitality of the internet’. Its goal is to ‘help educate businesses, policy makers and stakeholders while developing and advancing best practices and tools to enhance the protection of users’ security, privacy and identity’.
The Online Trust Alliance analysed over 1,000 data breaches from the first half of 2014, breaches involving the loss of personally identifiable information (PII). They found over 90% of data breaches could have been prevented. After the review they compiled 12 ‘critical’ security practices to lessen the risk of a cyberattack. Among them were making password management a priority, adopting a least-privilege network design, better securing vulnerable endpoints, and conducting regular penetration tests.
For more information read ZDNet’s coverage of the report.
For nearly 15 years Shred-X Document Destruction has been the leader in secure destruction services. We assist organisations in complying with the Privacy Act 1988 and its Amendments providing tailored services to thousands of commercial sites and households across Australia.
In addition to destroying documents we also degauss data on hard drives and offer physical destruction of e waste and hard drives, a more secure alternative to computer recycling.