The ways data is stolen..
Brian Krebs highlights a study on data theft/breaches. There are some interesting results (just 1/3 of data breaches were from criminal hacking, 29% from stolen laptops or storage media, 23% from improper disclosure of information (oops I published all our customers information on the website.) and 7% from inside sources – employees taking/selling data, just 2% from lost backup tapes (wouldn’t that fall under storage media?)
The leaders in data loss seem to be Colleges and Universities, followed by the Government and then businesses.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Colleges and Universities have done everything possible to protect their computer systems and keep them updated. This is not the first study that’s suggested that College and University PCs are a part of the problem online.
Yet another bit of proof that you can never make a single transaction online and still have your private data stolen.