Scottish businesses with legacy IT systems vulnerable to data breaches

Cyber crime is a growing problem that needs to be addressed. It is a worldwide phenomenon, with Scotland particularly susceptible as many businesses have yet to implement data protection and erasure measures.

An article recently published by Future Scot revealed that thousands of email accounts belonging to public sector officials had been discovered on the dark web. Some of those who were affected needed to change passwords, cancel credit cards and change banks due to problems with security and personal IDs being duplicated.

As our data becomes more and more valuable to companies, the security of data is becoming a major concern. In order to protect our data, companies must destroy it at the end of its use. This is especially the case for when servers and various data architecture is being disposed of. In these circumstances, it is recommended to use a hard drive destroyer or data erasure equipment such as degaussers which magnetically remove media for hard disks.

Businesses are currently required by law to manage personal information responsibly and make sure that they destroy it once it is no longer needed or when someone requests its deletion. Data protection laws impose requirements on those who collect or process personal data (data controllers) in order to ensure that their processing of personal data complies with privacy legislation. Data protection legislation is designed to protect individuals from intrusive and unlawful processing of their personal data, including the right not to be subject to decisions based solely on automated processing (e.g., profiling), if an individual does not give explicit consent.

In Scotland, the data protection act is only mandatory if you collect sensitive personal data about people. However, it is likely that the law will change in the near future to make even basic data safe from hackers, as there are gaps in its current provisions according to data experts.

As Scotland emerges from the pandemic and prepares for the crucial COP26 summit, businesses will need to be more vigilant than ever as the eyes of the world descend on Glasgow for the next climate change summit.

Is your business protecting its data securely?