The 21 Best Ways to Lose Your Information

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April 12, 2002 (Computerworld) -- Have you ever wondered what the best ways are to get hacked, be adversely affected by disasters, or otherwise lose information stored on your computer systems? Here, in no particular order, are the 21 best ways to not secure your systems:

1. Don't pay attention to or even bother to understand what you're trying to protect.

2. Leave your databases, especially those containing credit card or other confidential information, unencrypted. And be sure to store them on publicly accessible servers.

3. Don't patch your software or update your virus signatures, and never, ever run vulnerability assessments to detect newly discovered software flaws and system misconfigurations. It's just too time-consuming.

4. When an employee quits or is let go, leave his network log-ins and e-mail accounts enabled. You never know when he might want to check in on things.

5. Don't create any security policies that document how you're safeguarding your information to protect your organization and clients from information disasters and legal liabilities.

6. If you do happen to have a security policy, never refer to it, enforce it, update it or do what it says.

7. Completely outsource your information security initiatives. There's no need for anyone inside your organization to worry about such matters.

8. By all means, don't take an inventory of your information systems or document your network.

9. Apply the principle of greatest privilege. Give all users the greatest amount of access to your information systems. Everyone should have access to everything -- it's only fair, right?

10. Rely solely on technology. Firewalls, encryption and antivirus software are all you need to protect your information.

11. Run your business without disaster recovery and business continuity plans. After all, you can think clearly and make critical decisions under pressure, right?

12. Don't monitor your systems. They'll be fine running by themselves, and if anything major happens with the integrity or availability of your information, you'll be notified automatically, won't you?

13. Don't back up your data, but if you must, don't test your backups.

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