Customer Data Used For Application Testing

 An interesting study conducted by the Ponemon Institute has thrown up some interesting facts regarding the (mis)use of customer data. Sixty two percent of the companies that were questioned by Ponemon stated that they used real and sensitive customer data while testing and developing applications.

Given the fact that the data includes employee, vendor and customer records, and credit card and Social Security numbers, it is a little surprising that companies are loath to use duplicate data for testing purposes.

The report states that 52% of companies outsource application testing and 49% of those questioned revealed that they shared sensitive data with the outsiders working on the application testing. Disregard for data security comes across quite strongly in these situations where companies are lazy enough not to use dummy data. This easy access to data can tempt unauthorized people to abuse the data.
Shockingly, well it is shocking you know, 50% of the companies interviewed had no idea if their data had been compromised during the testing and a third were not sure if their data had been lost or stolen during the testing and development phase.

Tags: crm, Customer Data