A major United States concert promoter recently lost a significant amount of data in a breach and investigators say it follows a typical pattern: insider theft.

A recent Ponomon Institute survey showed that many breach incidents are begun by inside threats. Not necessarily malicious, the study found, most incidents are caused by inattention, carelessness or employees not being well-versed in the need for or means of security.

Theft is being eyed
Investigators looking into last week's incident explained that someone made off with a server from the data center where most of C3 Presents company information was located . C3 Presents is the company behind Lollapalooza and the Austin City Limits festivals and, according to a Hypebot story, the server was stolen back in June. Investigators have said it appears the thieves stole the server for money and were not after the data contained in the cabinet. The company said past and present employees and vendors represented most of the people affected by the breach although some third-parties were impacted, very few suffered any loss from the theft.

Averting disaster
Companies like 3C Presents could better protect themselves and their data operations by stepping outside the traditional security methods employed and embracing state-of-the-art biometric security. Fingerprint scanning is a method that enables companies to lock down data centers and server cabinets to unauthorized personnel. By using a person's own fingerprints biometric technology can establish a unique identifying template for each employee allowed access to the data center. With other means of boosting physical security in place like mantraps, fences and on-site security, the utilization of fingerprint scanning is an almost foolproof and very cost effective way to prevent theft of property, both physical and intellectual. Traditional methods, keys, passwords and passcodes, ID cards and the like have all been breached over the past few years. Biometrics works because of the personal touch it brings. No two fingerprints anywhere in the world are the same – even with identical twins. The technology requires a match to allow entrance to a secured facility. Biometric technology can remove the uncertainty for company management that their security system will work and provide the solid and safe alternative in a relatively unbeatable way. 

Officials at 3C Presents didn't go as far as saying they'll be changing their security paradigm, but the company did say in a letter to staff and concert-goers alike that they had taken major steps to ensure such an event doesn't happen again. 

Click here to discover how to create indisputable audit trails through proper physical access control.