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Robert Martis · Joined: 14 May 2005 Posts: 22

Just a few clicks were enough to reveal “blacked out” names, training procedures and other secrets of an electronic report the U.S. military has released recently.

The U.S. military command in Baghdad produced a report in Portable Document Format, or PDF, and posted it on the command's Web site Saturday. Its censors simply put black rectangles over the text and did not delete any of the text itself from the documents. Readers can see what's buried beneath by simply opening the document in Acrobat Reader, hitting the “select text” button, copying and then pasting all the text into any word processor.

Such cases of confidentail data leakage are not uncommon. Besides offering the ability to uncover blacked-out text, many documents carry “metadata”, or embedded information like the document's author and company. For example, users of Microsoft Corp.'s Word routinely send files embedded with previous drafts, all revealed with a few clicks.

The users should realize that it's always a bad idea to email sensitive electronic documents or place them on a web site. Generally, when you release documents electronically, they have to be scrubbed with certain tools or procedures.

See the full story at Data leak highlights complexities of electronic documents

Robert Martis · Joined: 14 May 2005 Posts: 22

The loss of personal data of millions of consumers is prompting companies to embrace security technology they have neglected.

Most businesses copy computer data on backup tapes for storage with third-party vendors in the event of a disaster. Few encrypt it, because doing so is costly and technically challenging.

Now, only 6% of financial-service companies and 7% of businesses encrypt all their backup tapes. However, banks and other financial institutions are already encrypting customer information for online banking, so what's stopping them from encrypting that same information when it is being transported?

Although no specific financial losses have been reported in the rash of lost data, cybercrooks covet stolen IDs, which they can convert to cash through theft, reshipping and money-laundering schemes.

It is known that hundreds of companies are already stung by misplaced data of millions of people and are rushing to protect computer backup tapes with data-scrambling encryption technology, security experts say.

See the full story at Data losses push businesses to encrypt backup tapes

Robert Martis · Joined: 14 May 2005 Posts: 22

Electronic forgery menaces humanity
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/24/e-forgery/)

Electronic forgery is becoming a greater risk as more company information is stored electronically. But many organizations are ignoring the issue. About 80 per cent of all company information is stored electronically, yet the most valuable and sensitive information is most often left unguarded.

A lot of investment has been around the movement of information and stopping people from actually penetrating the company’s ‘castle walls’. However, much less investment is made in actually protecting the core assets, which is the actual documents, information and content that surrounds a business.

Electronic documents are very easy to open, lend, modify and save. Electronic document forgery is one of the greatest emerging security threats which organizations will need to address.

It is important to store all sensitive and confidential information in a specific location. A large number of security issues arise from the fact that the company actually doesn’t know where the sensitive data is stored. Find Protected helps locate the protected files. For example, Find Protected may search the corporate network for the financial information stored in Excel files.