Research & Trends: Don't Forget About Data Security & Privacy

By Brian Kilcourse, RSR Research

A couple of weeks ago, I received a letter from the Honda Motor Company, and on a whim (I almost always throw letters from car companies away, assuming that they just want to sell me extended warranties), I opened it to read. Much to my surprise, it was a notification that an unauthorized access to my profile on the owner link site had occurred. Data that had been filched included my car's VIN (vehicle identification number) and user-ID, which happens to be my "private" email address. Not to worry, advised the letter, "your password was not included, and no other sensitive information was contained on that list."