"Constance vigilance" – Harry Potter fans might recognise that phrase, oft-quoted by a decidedly demented and obviously paranoid teacher. But it’s something online users might need to latch on to, seeing as personal data theft reached record levels in 2007.

AP reported the news, based on statements from Linda Foley’s Identity Theft Resource Center and the group Attrition.org. Foley insists that while more institutions are doing more to curb threats, they could do more and not just wait for actual crimes to occur.

"More of them are experiencing data breaches, and they’re responding to them in a reactive way, rather than proactively looking at the company’s security and seeing where the holes might be," said Linda Foley. The center she helped found lists more than 79 million records reported compromised in the United States through December 18. That’s a big leap from the 20 million reported in 2006.

Attrition.org estimated more than 162 million records compromised through December 21 globally.

"It’s just the nature of business, that moving forward, more companies are going to have more records, so there will be more records compromised each year," said Attrition’s Brian Martin. Martin also said he expected the numbers to continue increasing.

What the article also points out is the number of high-profile security breaches reported in mass media. It gives cause to wonder, if other security breaches have occurred without being reported. Or, in a worst-case scenario, breaches have happened that have gone undetected.

Hackers have become more inventive with their methods at compiling user data and are also taking advantage of the heavy proliferation of wireless connectivity. It’s become increasingly easy to find Wi-Fi in public places but the average user isn’t always clued-in to the vulnerability risks that wireless connections pose. It is far easier to hack into data sent via wireless means than through Ethernet, for example. Convenience must not be paid for with a loss of data security and privacy; it is a price none of us can afford to pay.

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Entry was posted on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 12:59 am under Security.

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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