It took Hawaii Community Federal Credit Union nearly one year to notify its members of a data breach, which involved employees improperly accessing customer names, addresses and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers. As a result of the data breach, the credit union plans to have employees participate in a new training process on policies prohibiting the access of members’ information as well as a new website that will allow employees to anonymously report suspicious activity of co-workers.
With the exception of Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico and South Dakota, every state has enacted legislation requiring notification of security breaches involving personal information. However, when looking at time to notify consumers only Wisconsin specifically identifies a maximum number of days stating “within a reasonable time, not to exceed 45 days.” Most other states use vague language like “most expedient time possible, without unreasonable delay.” Last July, the House of Representatives approved legislation aptly titled, Secure and Fortify Electronic (SAFE) Data Act, that if enacted would pre-empt state data breach disclosure laws and require companies to notify the FTC and affected individuals within 48 hours. Bad news though – the legislation has appeared to have fallen into the political abyss and no further movement has been made in its passage through Congress. Unfortunately, it might take years before the government properly mandates reasonable consumer notification timeframes, so in the meantime businesses need to make sure that their security is bolstered from both external and internal threats. At BeyondTrust we help organizations secure their perimeter by providing a least privilege ecosystem where consistent policy-driven, role-based access control, monitoring, logging, and reporting is used to protect internal assets from the inside out.
