Data breaches will not only cost your company massive legal fees and customer confidence they also are costing companies millions in settlement agreements. After a data breach exposed the personally identifiable information (PII) of more than 17 million Countrywide customers a class-action lawsuit against the company has resulted in settlement agreements that entitles those affected to up to $50,000 each. Avivah Litian, an analyst at Gartner, said, “One company, in this case Countrywide, is getting all of the headlines, but this could be a rampant practice throughout the industry.”

For many companies, the first step in shoring up and defending themselves against a major data breach is assessing where their information is being stored, both on the network and off, and knowing who has access to this information. Once a company understands these key pieces of the information management puzzle, they are better positioned to implement and enforce policies and procedures that will protect them from the financial and legal risks that all companies dealing with PII face.