Newspapers inadvertently leak subscribers' credit card details

Incidents such as the data security breach disclosed last week by The Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette—which inadvertently attached the credit card numbers of more than 200,000 subscribers to newspaper bundles—highlight the unexpected ways in which sensitive information can leak out of companies.

The data exposure by the two newspapers hammered home yet again the need for businesses to implement comprehensive policies for securing their information assets and then apply the appropriate controls to mitigate the risk of accidental compromises, according to security analysts.

"Given the infinite number of ways business processes are implemented in firms, there are potentially an infinite number of ways in which data can be lost," said Arshad Noor, CEO of StrongAuth Inc., a compliance management services firm in Sunnyvale, Calif.

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