Study lambastes poor data security

10 Mar 2010

"Vast gaps" in the data security of financial companies are endemic throughout the industry, research has claimed.

The Compuware and Ponemon Institute, a research company, has revealed that 83% of companies use real customer information when testing software, 51% of whom made no effort to make the data anonymous.

Compuware product manager Mark Schettenhelm said the problem was found regardless of company size, although he admitted that larger firms did "a little better".

He said: "This is something that would really surprise people, especially at the C-level. Some people would say that the data is old. But even data one or two years old can be very valuable on the open market."

Mr Schettenhelm also claimed that half of all privacy officers surveyed by the poll said they had insufficient resources with which to do their jobs.