Data policies help protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Personal Health Information (PHI) by helping to prevent data leakage. If you’re planning to take the SY0-501 version of the Security+ exam, you should have a basic understanding of different elements that may be contained in a data policy. This includes protecting PII and PHI.
For example, can you answer this question?
Q. An organization is preparing to hire additional network administrators. They decide to perform background checks on all personnel after obtaining written permission. Which of the following items is NOT appropriate to include in a background check?
A. Social media presence
B. Criminal background
C. Financial history
D. Medical history
More, do you know why the correct answer is correct and the incorrect answers are incorrect? The answer and explanation are available at the end of this post.
PII and PHI
Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is personal information that can be used to personally identify an individual. Personal Health Information (PHI) is PII that includes health information.
Some examples of PII are:
• Full name
• Birthday and birth place
• Medical and health information
• Street or email address information
• Personal characteristics, such as biometric data
• Any type of identification number, such as a Social Security number (SSN) or driver’s license number
In general, you need two or more pieces of information to make it PII. For example, “John Smith” is not PII by itself because it can’t be traced back to a specific person. However, when you connect the name with a birth date, an address, medical information, or other data, it is PII.
When attackers gain PII, they often use it for financial gain at the expense of the individual. For example, attackers steal identities, access credit cards, and empty bank accounts. Whenever possible, organizations should minimize the use, collection, and retention of PII. If it’s not kept, it can’t be compromised. On the other hand, if they collect PII and attackers compromise the data, the company is liable.
The number of security breach incidents resulting in the loss of PII continues to rise. For example, a Veteran’s Affairs (VA) employee copied a database onto his laptop that contained PII on over 26 million U.S. veterans. He took the laptop home and a burglar stole it. The VA then went through the painful and expensive process of notifying all of the people who were vulnerable to identity theft, and the affected individuals spent countless hours scouring their records for identity theft incidents. Even though police later recovered the laptop, the VA paid $20 million to settle a lawsuit in the case.
This is not an isolated incident. The Identity Theft Resource Center tracks data breaches and lists them on their site (http://www.idtheftcenter.org/). Their 2015 report reported the number of known U.S. data breaches at 780, exposing more than 177 million records containing PII and/or PHI. Some data breaches were small, affecting only a few hundred people. Others were large such as the attack on Scottrade, accessing more than 4.6 million records. Many times, the companies don’t even report how many records were accessed, so the number of data records in the hands of criminals is very likely much higher.
Each of these instances resulted in potential identity theft and the loss of goodwill and public trust of the company. Both customers and employees were negatively impacted, and the companies were forced to spend time and energy discussing the incident, and spend money trying to repair their reputations.
Protecting PII and PHI
Organizations have an obligation to protect PII. There are many laws that mandate the protection of PII, including international laws, federal laws, and local regulations. Organizations often develop policies to identify how they handle, retain, and distribute PII, and these policies help ensure they are complying with relevant regulations. When a company doesn’t use a specific PII policy, it usually identifies methods used to protect PII in related data policies.
Many laws require a company to report data losses due to security breaches. If an attack results in the loss of customer PII data, the company is required to report it and notify affected individuals. As an example, Arizona enacted a security breach notification law that requires any company doing business in Arizona to notify customers of security breaches. Most states in the United States have similar laws, and similar international laws exist.
One of the common reasons data seems to fall into the wrong hands is that employees don’t understand the risks involved. They might not realize the value of the data on a laptop, or they might casually copy PII data onto a USB flash drive. It is important to note that data classification and labeling procedures help employees recognize the data’s value and help protect sensitive data.
Training is also important. One of the goals of security professionals is to reinforce the risks of not protecting PII. When employees understand the risks, they are less likely to risk customer and employee data to identity theft.
Additionally, if employees need to transmit PII over a network, they can ensure it’s protected by using encryption. Encrypting data-in-transit provides strong protection against loss of confidentiality.
Many governments have enacted laws mandating the protection of both PII and PHI. Also, there are many documents that provide guidance on how to protect it. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) created Special Publication (SP) 800-122 “Guide to Protecting the Confidentiality of Personally Identifiable Information (PII).” It identifies many specific safeguards that organizations can implement to protect PII along with steps to take in response to a data breach involving PII. You can access all the NIST publications at http://csrc.nist. gov/publications/PubsSPs.html.
Q. An organization is preparing to hire additional network administrators. They decide to perform background checks on all personnel after obtaining written permission. Which of the following items is NOT appropriate to include in a background check?
A. Social media presence
B. Criminal background
C. Financial history
D. Medical history
Answer is D. Medical history is not appropriate to include in a background check.
However, it is common to check a potential employee’s social media presence, criminal background, and financial history.
See Chapter 11 of the CompTIA Security+: Get Certified Get Ahead: SY0-501 Study Guide for more information on protecting data.