Security experts from McAfee announced tonight that the United Nations and 72 other organizations were among those who were infiltrated by a cyber-attack – the largest data breach to date. According to Reuters, the hackers broke into the computer system of the U.N. Secretariat in Geneva in 2008, and were subsequently able to comb through terabytes of secret data for the last 2 years undetected.
As more details emerge, one of the inevitable questions that will likely be asked in the coming days is why did it take so long to report the release of unauthorized information? Most organizations, and governments are no different, are afraid that disclosure of a data breach will cause irreparable harm and damage to its reputation and/or brand. This is mainly due to the fact that they lack the necessary internal and external controls to secure its most valuable asset – mission-critical information. Data governance is the elephant in the room that few business executives and political leaders understand or contemplate. The size of this latest breach will likely lead to a paradigm shift in how organizations view protecting data.