The warning comes in the wake of a major UK NHS Trust being significantly fined by a data protection watchdog after highly sensitive hard drives ended up being sold on eBay.
Glyn Dodd, managing director of Centrex Services, which repairs business IT equipment on behalf of companies, warns, “It is unbelievable that data security and integrity is being lost and miss-managed at various points in the service supply chain, which is how the problem for the Trust occurred.”
Centrex believes that the maintenance sector has developed into specific silos of service; from diagnostics and scheduling to parts, logistics, field service and repair; and until responsibility is allocated, and there is recognition that the supply chain contains very sensitive data, this hidden danger will continue to escalate to a critical level.
Dodd explains, “Channel partners in the maintenance sector are operating in silos and this has led to gaps in between operational activity. Data protection has slipped into these chasms and unless the sector acts upon this quickly, we place ourselves at risk of operating within a security minefield, with the potential for dramatic increases in data security breaches.”