"Despite the temptation to use the term 'data breach' as a catch-all for the exposure of Social Security numbers, credit card information and addresses -- a data breach can actually represent a multitude of meanings for different people," said Clarke. "Data breaches resulting in loss of a company's intellectual property can be utterly catastrophic to corporations whose competitive advantage is ensured by trade secrets."
Recent research, such as the "Information Security Survey on Internal Threats" conducted by research organization Zoomerang and Liquid Machines, echoed the commonly-held industry point-of-view that organizations need to protect their sensitive data and critical intellectual property information both inside and outside of the perimeter -- as the findings showed that nearly half (45 percent) of employees take company data with them when they leave for new jobs.
"If the recent epidemic of data loss incidents at companies such as DuPont and Oracle have taught the market anything, it's that safeguarding critical information requires more than just a firewall and selective encryption," added Ruffolo. "Security policies must be permanently merged with the critical information itself to prevent any unauthorized access or manipulation. We've come a long way since the days of the locked file cabinet -- and companies need to make sure their security solutions have as well."
