What’s the Problem With Forgotten Data?…EVERYTHING!

Regardless of industry, business deal with tons of data on a daily basis. Have you ever wondered what happens to that data?

It’s used, filed away and forgotten — but what does that mean in relation to your business down the road? A majority of today’s data breaches involve forgotten data, which means it’s that much more data that cyber criminals can get their hands on.

Just about every business works with masses of data every day, much of which is used and then filed away and forgotten. Gartner calls this forgotten data “dark data,” and defines it as “information assets organizations collect, process and store during regular business activities, but generally fail to use for other purposes.”
Forgotten data poses a serious security risk. In fact, Verizon’s 2008 Data Breach Investigations Report found that 66 percent of breaches involved forgotten data—data that companies do not even know is in their system.
Forgotten data includes all sorts of information that hackers can potentially find on the deep web, including old reports and sales presentations, archived emails, outdated customer information, network log files, and metadata. Forgotten data also includes information that your company may store without realizing it, not only on PCs and thumb drives but also on devices such as:
Scanners
Printers
Photocopiers
Fax machines

You can read the full article here: The Dangers of Forgotten Data