Part 2

Many believe that the future of IT job growth will not be in systems maintenance or development, but in IT security.  Security can be tricky for most businesses.  There is no question that it can be very expensive to maintain, and it is often overlooked.  It also can be very awkward to work around, and corporate cultures are typically geared towards getting things done quickly, which makes data security more of an afterthought. 

Both large and small businesses are at risk. Given the economic climate, larger businesses have been reducing staff in order to save money, which forces the remaining staff to be more efficient.  Data security is often a casualty in that environment.  Small businesses suffer too, as they often do not have the resources to implement basic disaster recovery plans and data security solutions. 

American manufacturing in particular needs to be very careful about this.  They already face stiff competition from foreign competitors, but what many do not realize is that their foreign competitors have advantages other than just being able to produce products cheaply.  International law does very little to protect the patent rights of American businesses, this allows foreign competitors to steal from their competition.  They can accomplish this by reverse engineering a product, or they can be more sophisticated and use data hacking to steal designs, customer data, or anything else they see fit.  Computer hacking has become such a problem that data security experts often classify companies into two classes:  those who have been hacked, and those who have been hacked and do not know it.

The bottom line is this… any small business that captures even simple information such as names, addresses, and social security numbers needs to be doing everything it can to protect someone from stealing the identity of its clients.  While this may seem like common sense, when it comes to pure dollars and sense, data security is not a priority.  This can be costly in terms of data loss, as it is estimated that the average cost of a data record lost is now over $200.  But it can have other implications as well.  Most states now have laws requiring businesses to protect their client’s information, and in some industries, there are federal regulations as well.  The laws are clear that it is senior management that is ultimately responsible for these things, but many small business owners are likely not aware that it applies to them, and the consequences can range from fines to jail time. 

This is where risk comes into play.  It is the job of management to identify what is most important to their businesses.  But their IT department, which is often a 3^rd party, needs to get beyond simply providing a data security solution.  They need to inform management of the specific risks that come with their data security solution or disaster recovery plan. 

Click here to read PART 3