'Toxic' Data Spills

Large businesses spend too much money trying to comply with cybersecurity mandates and not enough to keep their high-value secrets from being stolen, according to a new study from Forrester Research.

"Enterprises are overly focused on compliance and not focused enough on protecting their secrets," said the study, which was released yesterday by Microsoft Corp. and RSA, the security division of EMC.

Forrester separated sensitive data into two groups: company secrets and custodial data. "Legislation, regulation, and contracts compel enterprises to protect custodial data," it noted. "Custodial data has little intrinsic value in and of itself. But when it is obtained by an unauthorized party, misused, lost, or stolen, it changes state."

"Data that is ordinarily benign transforms into something harmful," it warned. "When custodial data is spilled, it becomes 'toxic.'"

Businesses that participated in Forrester's survey indicated that they spent about equal amounts protecting trade secrets and custodial data. But the survey suggested that trade secrets were much more valuable and needed more protection. -- TL