Sometimes the boring details that we overlook could mean the difference between success and failure in our businesses.
Protect Your Company From Critical Data Leaks
Sometimes the boring details that we overlook could mean the difference between success and failure in our businesses. When it comes to protecting your data, not every threat takes the shape of a sensational international network of hackers or a rogue employee turned mole. Sometimes something as innocent as e-mailing a draft of a PowerPoint presentation can release sensitive information–those little details are important.
The hidden risk of metadata
All electronic documents contain hidden information called metadata. Metadata consists of information about your document that is not easily accessible to the user. Once accessed, however, it can reveal important information about your organization that you would prefer stay private. In addition to metadata, electronic documents also contain fields of information which by default are not visible. Before sending a document to a third party via e-mail or USB drive, it is extremely important to make sure that you don’t inadvertently also send sensitive information.
How real is this risk?
If you are in doubt, ask Google. Executives at Google inadvertently revealed internal financial forecasts when a PowerPoint presentation was circulated containing the private information in a hidden slide. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence inadvertently released the U.S.’s budget for National Intelligence by forgetting to remove hidden information from an electronic document before circulating it. The Justice Department released confidential Social Security numbers when they failed to realize the data existed in a PDF file they released to the public. The list goes on and on. If it can happen to large companies and government agencies, it can certainly happen to you.
Conduct a metadata and hidden data audit
Take a few hours this week to review your most important files to determine if sensitive information is at risk of being released. If this initial test finds a problem, you should plan for further testing or even consider using a third party solution to manage Meta and hidden data. Be on the lookout for:
Document properties
Microsoft Office files contain a document properties section which could include data on the author, the author’s manager, hyperlinks, keywords, internal notes and more. If your company uses boilerplates it could be very embarrassing for a client to receive a document with information in the properties section about another client.
