Data Loss: An Empirical Analysis in Search of Best Practices for Prevention

The cost an convenience of cloud computing has motivated many organizations to migrate their data and application services to cloud platforms, yet information security concerns persist. Data loss incidents experienced by organizations over the past decade offer many valuable lessons, which are highly relevant to the present trend of storing sensitive data in clouds. This paper presents our analysis of the DataLoss db, an Open Source Foundation project to collect information on data loss incidents throughout the world. The historical probability of recovering data after it is lost is low, suggesting that the design and implementation of an enterprise wide data protection plan may be the most effective method to mitigate the risk of data loss. Our analysis includes an examination of the cases where data was recovered, drawing insights where better data protection policies and procedures could avoid similar losses in the future.