The Boston Globe is running a story with the headline Bank loses tape with personal information of 90,000 customers You can read it here:
Boston Globe story on Bank losing personal data
In this case the fact that data was not encrypted should speak volumes about how seriously this firm is taking the security of its customers data. If they will send the tape off site unenecrypted how do the treat access to the data inhouse? The point is we do not know. But we do know that those who advised this bank did not think the personal data was important enough to encrypt.
There have been several stories over the past year of personal data lost by the shipping company or outside storage company.
To bring this to a personal level. I have long advocated keeping good backups of your computer contents. In addition to those backups I recommend a separate backup of the most important files that you keep with you. That backup you keep with you should be encrypted at best and securely passworded at the very least.
