Introduction
The number of companies outsourcing functions or services that are not their core business, including (and especially) information management, has seen tremendous growth since the new millennium. This has contributed to steady growth in the amount of data exchanged between companies, clients and suppliers. The growth trend is only increasing, and is expanding to new areas such as cloud services, home office, BYOD, etc.
Consequently, company and client information is now exposed to a multitude of risks and consequences, some of which can be serious.
Recent high-profile security breaches have raised public concern about how secure their personal information is. In December 2013, Target reported 77 million customer accounts were compromised, resulting in $24 billion worth of damage. And at Global Payments 46 million VISA and Mastercard numbers were stolen, causing $94 million in losses.
These hair-raising examples are just the tip of the iceberg, and point to a rising and troubling trend.
