The other day I received an email from Vudu – one of the major online video streaming companies – informing me that one of their offices had been broken into and that among the items stolen was an employee’s laptop. That laptop, it seems, contained customer account information complete with credit card information and birthdates and other sensitive information. Now Vudu has a major publicity disaster to deal with, unhappy and frightened customers (me among them) and the potential for some big costs coming their way (can you say lawsuit?). This got me thinking about employee data security.

In today’s environment of increased data theft it is important to understand – and protect yourself against – ALL of the ways that sensitive data can be accessed. As the Vudu case proves it’s not enough to secure your network from unauthorized access but you must ensure that any place sensitive data is stored must be protected. This applies not only to online e-commerce companies but HR departments as well. Stop and consider how much really sensitive data your HR department has access to: social security numbers, birthdates, family demographic information, medical records … the list is long.

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