It seems like a new data breach at a major corporation is announced every day, and it can be nerve-racking thinking about all the personal information company's have that's unprotected. Unfortunately, those fears may be for good reason, as this year may be the worst yet for data breaches and resulting identity theft.
A recent study from the National Consumers League brought more bad news about the state of information security in the U.S. Researchers with the NCL found that nearly one-third of data breaches last year resulted in identity fraud, up from one-ninth in 2010, according to a report from Capital Public Radio .
A separate study from the Identity Theft Resource Center published by Time seems to back up these statistics. Data breaches putting individuals at risk of identity theft have risen almost 20 percent so far this year. Nearly 11 million records have already been compromised in 381 data breaches. The ITRC declares a data breach if someone's name is put at risk of being seen by an unauthorized party when accompanied by another piece of personal information like a medical record or Social Security number.
According to the ITRC, the majority of breaches have affected individuals in the business sector, but breaches in government and healthcare each make up 15 percent of the overall number.
"Hackers are having a field day at consumers' expense. This is because businesses and other organizations that collect consumer data haven't made data security a high enough priority," read a statement by the NCL published by FedScoop.
Protect against identity theft with FoIP
Organizations looking to find a safer way to transmit and store personal client information should consider implementing a fax-over-IP solution. Records sent with a FoIP service are stored in a secure, dedicated database protected with back-end encryption techniques to ensure information is only seen by those who are meant to have access.
With this identity theft solution, documents can be faxed easily over the Internet and sent directly to a client's email address as an attachment. Messages sent with FoIP are better protected than email, however, as all information is stored on a protected server and deleted after the fax is received. Business communication is made safer and simpler by implementing a fax-over-IP solution.
Enhance enterprise communication, collaboration and compliance efforts with a proven FoIP solution from FaxCore. Contact FaxCore today to learn more about their 'Partly-Cloudy' fax solutions.
