The magazine for alumni and friends of the UB School of Management
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10 Buffalo Business Spring 2023 Cleary says the issue stems from government transparency laws that were written in a different time with a different mindset. "The ecosystem where our data exists is really violated," he says. "It's so complex that blanket laws aren't going to do a whole lot to move the needle." As we navigate the internet — and our daily lives — we increasingly leave a trail of information in our wake. We're generating so much data that scientists have had to create new units of measurement just to keep pace. Last fall, the 27th General Conference on Weights and Measures added four new prefixes to the metric system — the first such expansion since 1991. (One of them is the "quetta" — a 1 with a mind-boggling 30 zeros aer it.) For individuals, data privacy has implications for our security, finances, health care and more. For organizations, the proper collection, storage, management and sharing of data is critical for compliance with regulations and building customer trust. But along with the privacy challenges that come with big data, the growing world of information provides opportunities for businesses and value for customers, too. What's legal and what's right Businesses and orga- nizations grapple with two main data privacy issues, according to Cleary: What ethical decisions should they be making with the data they collect, and what does the law say they need to do to protect that data? These are the things that Clair Bauman, BS '98, MBA '00, thinks about every day as director of the Financial Services Regulatory Office at Kyndryl, the world's largest IT infrastructure provider. The company, which began as a spinoff of IBM's infra- structure services business, is now a separate company with annual revenue of more than $18 billion. "One breach, one incident and the reputational harm could be enormous," she says. "Cyberattacks on corpo- rations are the new normal and are extremely costly, not just financially but also because of the impact they have on people's lives. Cybercriminals will always focus on high- value targets and low-hanging fruit." She says hackers are most likely to attack IT systems that are easy to exploit because they have vulnerable systems connected to the internet, a lack of multifactor authentication or other basic security issues.