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Achieving PCI compliance with storage security systems.

Article Excerpt
As organizations look to comply with the PCI standards, the matter of protecting data-at-rest through encryption is a serious--and complex--priority.

While hackers beating against the corporate firewall have captured the headlines, the breaches that are genuinely compromising business stability and consumer confidence are hitting data while in storage, known as data-at-rest. Businesses have made significant strides in protecting their networks from external intrusion, but today's vulnerability is located in data storage. We examine the current security situation, outline the pros and cons of several storage security alternatives, and provide brief highlights of technical and operational best practices in addressing this security issue.

Data breaches make headlines

Reported data breaches involving the loss or theft of tapes and disks skyrocketed in 2005, with more breaches than in all prior years in this decade. Each incident exposed tens of thousands of unsuspecting people to potential identity theft through misuse of personal records containing financial or medical details.

The business impact of these thefts and losses can hardly be overestimated. Liability for the potential use of this data is enormous. Consumer confidence plummets and there is ample statistical evidence of consumers choosing to abandon vendors who suffer these breaches in favour of those who have not. The 2005 EDS US Financial Services Privacy and Customer Relationship Management Survey reported that 40 percent of consumers would either immediately or eventually close bank accounts and move to another establishment if there had been a breach. Fully 32 percent would discontinue online banking, reverting to...

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