BEWARE WHO FIXES THAT BROKEN LAPTOP

Forbes (01/05/10) Greenberg, Andy

Data recovery services account for a large percentage of privacy breaches, in which businesses lose control of personal information relating to employees or customers, according to a study released Jan. 5 by the Ponemon Institute. Data recovery vendors account for as many as 20 percent of data loss incidents at firms that use their services, the report says. Ponemon researchers queried 636 information technology professionals who had relied on data-recovery services or were knowledgeable about them. Eighty-three percent of respondents said their organizations at some point had lost control over their customers' sensitive information, and 19 percent of these said they had encountered a data breach when they brought on a third-party data recovery vendor. "A lot of organizations are focused on firewalls or perimeter controls and ignoring simple issues like these," says Ponemon CEO Larry Ponemon. "You're handing over your company's crown jewels to a stranger, often without assessing what security controls are in place to reduce the risks."

BUSINESS PROFESSOR SAYS LESSONS ON ETHICS, CHARACTER CAN PREVENT UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR IN TH WORKPLACE

Psychology & Psychiatry Journal (01/09/10) P. 15

Research by Kansas State University professor of management Thomas A. Wright, the Jon Wefald Leadership Chair in Business Administration, shows that there is a gap between the character traits that business students say make good executives and the traits that they say they have themselves. Wright says business schools need to close that gap by continuously discussing ethics and character in the classroom, and that it is critical for students to learn about the importance of character and ethical behavior before entering the workplace. "As business professors in an increasingly 'just show me the money' business school environment, we all share responsibility for this moral decline," says Wright. "Many citizens are increasingly seeing the potentially grave consequences of dishonest and fraudulent actions by our business and political leaders." Wright's research involves measuring student character strength on several dimensions, including valor, hope, zest, honesty, critical thinking, kindness, and gratitude. Through Wright's research, students are able to identify their individual strength profile, as well as how them compare to other students. Wright found that business students believe social intelligence and a love of learning are the most important strengths to being an effective manager, but both of those strengths were among the least common strengths self-reported by students. Many students also rated honestly as one of the top five strengths, but another study found that 88 percent of students report they have cheated in school, with many reporting that they have cheater 100 times or more. "Our collective failure to practice strengths of character, such as perseverance and self control, has led us to the brink of both moral and financial ruin. Massive governmental takeovers are not the answer, but the development of individual character may well be a viable solution. As faculty members, the ethical and strength of character development of our students should be made an integral part of our stated mission in higher education," says Wright.