Vitrium Systems

With its wide range of applications, the cloud offers potential benefits for virtually anyone. The cloud has such great utility that many businesses are currently making use of the technology. Even companies that are wary of cloud computing are beginning to use it, as TechRepublic recently highlighted.

According to the news source, IT departments frequently adopt cloud services despite their CIO's belief that the company is completely cloud-free, simply because the technology has become so inevitably intertwined with enterprise operations.

However, while the cloud is an undoubtedly useful piece of technology, it is also presents security risks that must be addressed.

According to Ian Paul of PCWorld, one of the best practices for ensuring document security in the cloud is encryption. This is due to the fact that data stored in the cloud is housed on a vendor's servers along with other client data. Consequently, there is a risk that another user may somehow gain access to that information.

By using PDF protection to encrypt files prior to storing them in the cloud, a business or individual can significantly reduce the chances that data will end up in an unauthorized user's hands.

Recently, The Center for Responsible Enterprise and Trade (CREATe) released a report highlighting the financial impact of intellectual property theft on U.S. businesses. According to the organization, intellectual property theft is a major problem for U.S. enterprises, costing billions of dollars each year as well as immeasurable damage to companies' reputations and ability to compete in difficult markets.

In response to this report, the Obama administration is creating a campaign centered on uniting the public and private sectors to improve organizations' document security and data protection processes, the Wall Street Journal reports. The goal of this initiative is to cut down on the scale of international trade secret and intellectual property theft. 

Robert Hormats, undersecretary of State for economic growth, energy and the environment, called trade secret theft a "threat to the core of the American economy." However, he also stated that the U.S. government alone cannot be responsible for protecting the intellectual property of American businesses. Therefore, it is crucial that private companies work with the government and each other to improve and implement preventative measures.

A new study suggests that while hospitals and other healthcare organizations strive to meet regulatory compliance standards, some are coming up short when it comes to actually protecting patient data.

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society study included 250 senior health information and data security officers who, when asked to rate their organizations' compliance with state security laws on a scale of one to seven, gave themselves an average score of 6.41.

However, despite this degree of compliance, more than a quarter of participants experienced a security breach in the past 12 months, and 45 percent said that a lack of hospital security management policies puts sensitive data at risk of exposure.

Several recent incidents have demonstrated the degree of this vulnerability. Most notably, last month hackers accessed more than 750,000 Medicaid patients' data following a breach at the Utah Department of Health.

As this incident suggests, it is important for healthcare organizations to implement more rigorous document protection policies, such as encryption and stricter limitation of employee access to sensitive files.

Cloud computing has quickly established itself as a vital business and IT tool. Experts agree that the cloud's utility is not limited to technology-based companies, but is rather useful for organizations from virtually any industry. In a recent study of 3,000 small to medium-sized businesses (SMB) in 13 countries, Microsoft found that the number of small companies using at least one cloud service is likely to increase by 300 percent over the next three years.

However, while the cloud delivers significant benefits to organizations that incorporate the technology into their operations, it also carries significant risks. As MacWorld recently highlighted, numerous industry analysts believe that the current level of cloud security offered by vendors puts users' data at significant risk.

The source reported that managed service provider CenterBeam conducted tests on cloud providers and found that some did not sufficiently segregate virtual servers running on shared hard disks. Consequently, a cyberattacker could potentially access fragments of data from any organizations that use a given disk.

To improve the document security of information stored in the cloud, experts recommend that organizations encrypt their data. Doing so protects the information even in the event that it is accessed by a cyberattacker.

Cloud computing has quickly established itself as a vital business and IT tool. Experts agree that the cloud's utility is not limited to technology-based companies, but is rather useful for organizations from virtually any industry. In a recent study of 3,000 small to medium-sized businesses (SMB) in 13 countries, Microsoft found that the number of small companies using at least one cloud service is likely to increase by 300 percent over the next three years.

However, while the cloud delivers significant benefits to organizations that incorporate the technology into their operations, it also carries significant risks. As MacWorld recently highlighted, numerous industry analysts believe that the current level of cloud security offered by vendors puts users' data at significant risk.

The source reported that managed service provider CenterBeam conducted tests on cloud providers and found that some did not sufficiently segregate virtual servers running on shared hard disks. Consequently, a cyberattacker could potentially access fragments of data from any organizations that use a given disk.

To improve the document security of information stored in the cloud, experts recommend that organizations encrypt their data. Doing so protects the information even in the event that it is accessed by a cyberattacker.

The Center for Responsible Enterprise and Trade (CREATe) recently released a report highlighting the growing risk of intellectual property theft for businesses in the United States.

Intellectual property theft costs U.S. businesses billions of dollars each year and "can have devastating reputational, financial, and legal impacts for individual companies and the global economy as a whole," says CREATe president and CEO Pamela Passman. The report states that intangible assets, such as intellectual property, account for approximately three-quarters of most organizations' value and sources of revenue. Consequently, failure to protect these assets is a major issue for many firms.

To highlight the potential damage of intellectual property theft, the report cites the case of an automotive engineer who copied 4,000 documents onto an external hard drive before leaving his company to work for a competitor. According to the original employer, this theft cost the company more than $50 million.

To better protect themselves from intellectual property theft, industry experts recommends that organizations implement document security strategies more rigorously. By using encryption software and training employees to follow best practices, such as using difficult-to-guess passwords, a company can significantly reduce the likelihood of a loss of trade secrets or other intangible assets.

Data loss is a serious problem for many organizations. According to the recent CDW Data Loss Straw Poll survey of 654 IT professionals, approximately one-fourth of participants' organizations lost data in the last two years. Furthermore, survey respondents identified client, customer and employee personal information as the most likely target of a cyberattack.

Addressing this issue, IDC recently issued a report recommending encryption measures as a means of increasing organizations' document protection and preventing data loss. By using encryption tools, firms can significantly reduce the likelihood of sensitive information being accessed by a cyberthreat. This is particularly important if the files may be transmitted from one network to another, as IDC notes that traveling data is possibly the most at risk of being accessed by unauthorized users.

Additionally, the report argues that encrypting data on an internal network will help protect it from insider threats. If a company relies solely on outward-facing cybersecurity measures, a malicious insider will still be able to access all of the information stored on the firm's network. Encryption ensures that even if an employee decides to turn against his or her organization, the company's data will remain protected.

On Monday, April 30, the Florida Division of Emergency Management kicked off the first-ever Florida Public Sector-Private Sector Disaster Preparedness Summit, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.

Designed to improve awareness of the importance of disaster preparation as well as strategies for coping with such a catastrophe, the summit will last three days and feature guest speakers from across the country, including the director of the Federal Division of Emergency Management.

As part of the conference, AT&T offered a number of tips for disaster preparedness. Among the advocated practices are document protection measures - specifically off-site data backup. If a business is struck by a disaster, such as a fire or hurricane, it is likely that both physical and electronic documents stored at that location will be destroyed. If these are the only copies, such destruction can be devastating for a business. 

The advice provided by AT&T is seconded by Small Business Technology's Stephanie Faris. She recommends that firms regularly backup important data, ideally daily, and then store it offsite. Specifically, she advises businesses to use cloud backup, as this will help ensure that the information remains available at all times and can be accessed from any location.

In recent months, there have been a number of high profile data breaches involving healthcare providers, exposing the information of millions of patients. Perhaps most notably, the Utah Department of Health was struck by a cyberattack in which hackers accessed more than 200,000 files containing information affecting approximately 800,000 Utah residents.

In that case, faulty cybersecurity protection was largely to blame. However, it is equally important for organizations responsible for maintaining sensitive patient or client information to maintain strict document security standards in regards to physical devices.

This principle was recently highlighted by a pair of thefts affecting Accretive Health. According to the Pioneer Press, in June 2010 and July 2011, employees' laptops were stolen from their cars. In both cases, the laptops contained personal information for thousands of patients in the Fairview and North Memorial health systems.

In the first case, the laptop was encrypted, ensuring that the information it contained remained inaccessible to the thief. In the second, however, the laptop was not protected. Consequently, thousands of individuals were put in danger of being targeted for identity theft or fraud.

As these cases illustrate, it is crucial that individuals implement document protection strategies on their mobile devices to protect any sensitive information the machines may contain.

Days after the U.K Information Commissioner's Office revealed it received more than 10,000 complaints against organizations for violating the Data Protection Act, Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner's (DPC) office announced a record number of complaints  as well.

The annual DPC report noted that the agency received 1,161 complaints against Ireland-based organizations. This represents an increase of 48 percent from 2010, when the office fielded 783 total complaints.

Among the complaints were unsolicited marketing via email and text message, unlawful use of closed-circuit television to monitor workers, excessive data collection and denial of access to certain information.

According to the Irish Times, Billy Hawkes, the Data Protection Commissioner, noted a change in the types of complaints received in 2011 as compared to 2010. A significant number of 2011 complaints were concerned with document security, particularly the protection of personal data and the way that data was used by organizations. Nearly half of the complaints received last year concerned access rights to personal data.