Data Security Information

As my regular readers will know (both of you) I am doing my MBA at the moment and one of the areas I've come to is strategic data analysis. So, I thought long and hard about what I should cover in this area and suddenly had a brainwave! Why not do something that I can use for both University and my role here, then I give value to both workplace and University. That way I can do things on it during work time without feeling guilty too! Result!

So, what is it I want to analyse I hear you ask, well it's funny you should say that as I was just about to tell you. The area I've decided to cover is the importance of Data Security within a company. Obviously to a company like us it's critical as we manage so much of it for so many other people but what's it like for smaller companies who have less money to spend on this area, whats it like for a larger company and what sorts of budgets would they invest to ensure the data is safe, it can't be open ended. Can it?

The questions I'm looking to answer are as follows:-

• How important is data security to companies? Low / Medium / High / Critical?
• Are there markets that require data security more than others? If so, which?
• What price protecting customer data? As a % of spend how do the small compare to the large?
• How many data security breaches are there a year? Is there one area that is worse than others?

Those are some of the areas I've come up with so far as they will be areas of interest. Here's the bit where I say if there's anyone out there who can help me with this then hear my cry, HELP!

If you can't help but would still be interested in any data I do manage to collate then let me know and I'll send it on to you once it has been collected. (Obviously not compromising any data protection!)

As they used to say in Hill Street Blues.....lets be careful out there.

Mark