Cybergeddon III - Data privacy: we're dreaming

Let's start with the news that Optus, Telstra and Vodafone are scrambling to stop call centre staff in India selling their customer information. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a Mumbai-based security firm is asking for between $350 and $1,000 for mobile phone records and home addresses.

Based on these prices, the data of Telstra's 17.2 million mobile customers must be worth between $6 billion and $17 billion dollars. But you won't see that on its balance sheet. At the risk of repeating myself, businesses need to:

• Understand what their data is worth; and what is worth spending to protect it. The people to do this aren't in IT; and
• Invest in infrastructure and in controls to manage, monitor and protect the data.