VIRGINIA DATA SECURITY PICKED BY EXPERTS AS TARGET FOR TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES FOR 2007 ARTICLE: Fast forward: the technology of 2007 (The Virginian-Pilot - HamptonRoads.com/PilotOnline.com)

Fast forward: the technology of 2007

The Virginian-Pilot
© January 1, 2007

What technological advances will 2007 bring? Beats us. So to get a little help, we asked a few local experts to give us their opinions.

As seen by Adebisi Oladipupo, vice president for research & technology at Norfolk State University:

DATA SECURITY

As seen by Roger Grimes, director of IT technology, Eastern Data Inc.:

The only sure bet for 2007 will be an increased focus on preventing data leakage and theft. Executive stakeholders are keenly aware of the public embarrassments caused by lost and stolen data, as mandated by disclosure laws. Laptops were stolen, backup tapes were misplaced by transit companies, employees misused data and took it home, CD-ROMs were left in the backs of airplane seat-back pockets, and information wasstolen off servers and wireless networks at an ever-increasing rate.

None of the conventional defenses worked because unprotected data was in more places than anyone knew. And if you don’t know where your data is, how can you protect it?

To that end, most companies will be focused this year on identifying where their information is, creating stricter data-handling policies, and buying solutions to prevent information leakage. Encryption products will be big, as will be systems designed to find the data in the first place. Data-protection systems either scancomputer hard drives looking for predefined information formats (for example, XXX-XX-XXXX is a Social Security number) or listen on the network for similar signs of information leakage.Stolen laptops and personal digital assistants will phone home and self-delete protected data.

Microsoft’s Windows Vista, with its increased security and default encryption, will certainly affect the market, but most corporations will be waiting until 2008 to make the upgrade because of mature hardware purchasing cycles and application compatibility issues.

More than anything, 2007 will be the year when information technology focuses on strengthening current controls to decrease risk and provide more business value than ever before.