Merrill Cook
The penalties for not properly protecting consumer data can be stiff: from fines, to bad publicity, to costly lawsuits. In a recent studyby TRUSTe it was found that 89% of US consumers had avoided working with a company simply because of concerns about how they handle consumer data. While the answer on how to best protect customer data may be different for different business, following a well established security policy, and only keeping the data that you need are simple ways to minimize risk. Other tips include including customer data privacy in cloud vendor agreements, addressing policy with employees who bring their own device to work (or regularly keep work material on smart phones or home computers), and retaining data logs on your firewalls and servers for as long as possible. The last suggestion is important in that it helps you track down what exactly went wrong in your security setup in the event that there is a breach.
