Top IT data security threats revealed and what organisations must do to stop them

The flaws were identified during the ICO’s investigations into data breaches caused by poor IT security practices. Many of these incidents have led to serious security breaches resulting in the ICO issuing monetary penalties totalling almost a million pounds. The breaches could have been avoided if the standard industry practices highlighted in today’s report were adopted.

They include the £200,000 penalty issued to the British Pregnancy Advice Service after the details of service users were compromised due to the insecure collection and storage of the information on their website, and the £250,000 fine issued to Sony Computer Entertainment Europe after the company failed to keep its software up to date, leading to the details of millions of customers being compromised during a targeted attack.

Announcing the publication of today’s advice the ICO’s Group Manager for Technology, Simon Rice, said: “In just the past couple of months we have already seen widespread concern over the expiry of support for Microsoft XP and the uncovering of the security flaw known as Heartbleed. While these security issues may seem complex, it is important that organisations of all sizes have a basic understanding of these types of threats and know what action they need to take to make sure their computer systems are keeping customers’ information secure.

“Our experiences investigating data breaches on a daily basis shows that whilst some organisations are taking IT security seriously, too many are failing at the basics. If you’re responsible for the security of your organisation’s information and you think salt is just something you put on your chips, rather than a method for protecting your passwords, then our report is for you.

“The report provides an introduction into these established industry practices that could save you the financial and reputational costs associated with a serious data breach.”

The top eight computer security vulnerabilities covered in the ICO’s report comprise:
· a failure to keep software security up to date;
· a lack of protection from SQL injection;
· the use of unnecessary services;
· poor decommissioning of old software and services;
· the insecure storage of passwords;
· failure to encrypt online communications;
· poorly designed networks processing data in inappropriate areas; and
· the continued use of default credentials including passwords.

As well as the comprehensive report, the ICO’s Simon Rice will be publishing a series of blogs this week explaining the key aspects of the ICO’s latest advice in further detail. His first blog published this morning explains the pressing need for today’s report and how it was developed.