I read this article from the WashPo with great interest:
Businesses, governments and universities reported a 69 percent increase in data breaches in the first half of 2008 compared with a similar period in 2007, according to a study by a nonprofit group that works to prevent fraud.
As long as hundreds of thousands of sites have data that they need to secure, this issue isn’t going away. Unless, of course, we change the game.
Why not store all data in one place, much the way we store much of our own data in “the cloud.” Then when you or I start up a business, only give us access to the portions of that data we need and DO NOT let us store it ourselves – we tap the central repository to get what we need – no more, no less, and even then we don’t actually get it (it’s all read-only).
Think this won’t work? Where does your Facebook data live? Not on your PC. When all those apps tap it, think they’re hitting you up? Nope. They get what they need, keep what’s truly theirs, and only use a key of some sort to associate the two.
Sometimes the way to solve the problem is to change the way the game is played. It HAS to be easier to monitor and secure a single database than hundred of thousands (and I”m sure all the coders will tell me why I’m wrong). Yes, a breech of the sole repository would be…um..bad but it will, IMHO, be far less likely.
And I guess a business guy writing about tech is changing the game as well!
Consult Keith 