In this article, Carol Woodbury discusses the issues surrounding compliance as well as items to address to remain in compliance.

By Carol Woodbury

I wish I had a magic formula for ensuring that your organization's security configuration was in compliance. Unfortunately, it's just not that easy. It seems that there's at least a slight twist to every organization's compliance implementation. This article endeavors to provide guidelines for you to use to determine how best to attain and remain in compliance.

With frequent reports of lost backup tapes, stolen laptops, and database breaches, it's time to look at the new laws and regulations that protect the privacy of data.

The reason we're hearing about all of the breaches and loss of data is because of a law first passed in California and then enacted by most other states that requires organizations to notify individuals when their private data (e.g., social security number, bank account number, credit card number, or driver's license number) has been lost, breached, or thought to have been breached. As of this writing, 38 states have passed some version of a breach notification law. Most states provide some form of exemption from notification if the lost or stolen data was encrypted. This has driven many organizations to consider encrypting their backup media.

There's more than one way to secure and protect your important data.

Over the last few years, hundreds of corporations have been featured in headlines for data security breaches. According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, the records of over 158 million U.S. residents have been exposed by security breaches since January 2005. That's more than half of the U.S. population.

Lost or stolen backup tapes contributed to a large number of these breaches, yet protecting backup data is still often overlooked. Many companies believe that it is useless to protect these tapes because they contain "old" information only used for disaster recovery (DR), but even just one compromised backup tape can cost a company its reputation, its competitive advantage, and thousands in fines. The Ponemon Institute research firm reported that data breaches cost companies an average of $182 per compromised record in legal fees and other expenses.

ACH can give any organization the ability to manage all transfers of funds electronically.