Spreadsheets Seen as Security Hole

Bill Hostmann, an analyst at Gartner, said that while many organizations go to great lengths to secure transactional systems and Web applications, many more "do almost nothing, or a very limited amount," to protect data housed in BI applications and spreadsheets.
In the wake of multiple high-profile laptop thefts and data breaches, some I.T. shops are launching new initiatives to ensure that sensitive corporate data stored in spreadsheets and business intelligence tools remains secure.
The security efforts are taking on a new urgency as more workers gain access to BI tools and spreadsheets used for BI functions.
Several recent incidents -- including the inadvertent exposure of sensitive data for about 5,000 customers by Verizon Wireless that was disclosed last week, and the theft of a laptop from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs that contained personal information from some 26 million veterans -- involved unsecured spreadsheets.
Users and analysts said that spreadsheets are often the most common method used to analyze corporate data and are increasingly used as a front-end to more advanced BI systems. However, in most cases the ubiquitous application and the more traditional BI tools have not yet received the same security scrutiny as transactional systems and Web applications, they said.