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Hundreds of thousands of businesses around the world use a server room in their office for their online operation. A server room is often a little bigger than a closet filled with computer servers and IT gear.<\/p>\n
One main server room limitation is the security of yours and your customers’ data. At the very least, the server room must be behind lock-and-key with limited people allowed access to it. Better yet, the entrance should be secured with two alarms, one for unauthorized entry and another in the case of a leak. Ideally the room would feature an IP Camera which would allow administrators to see who enters and leaves remotely.<\/p>\n
After a bit of research, there appears to only been 5 major data center heists in the last 10 years. To put that in perspective, commercial banks in the United States were robbed over 3400 times<\/a> in 2014 alone. <\/p>\n You can read up on the 5 NOC burglaries here: Level 3 (UK)<\/a> and Easynet (UK)<\/a> in 2006, Verizon (UK)<\/a> and CI Host (US)<\/a> in 2007, and Vodafone (UK)<\/a> in 2011. Obviously, server rooms at businesses get robbed at a much higher frequency, which is a major reason for off-site colocation. Here’s a few of the major recent burglaries that involved physical theft over virtual hacking:<\/p>\n 2006<\/strong>: A burglar broke into a Midwest office of American Insurance Group (AIG)<\/a><\/strong> and took with him a computer server containing the social security numbers and some medical records of close to a million Americans. The thief came in through the ceiling of the server room. A pro tip when picking a server room is avoid a room with more than one entrance, and certainly make sure there are no windows. <\/p>\n 2007<\/strong>: A computer file server containing very personal medical information on 3,000 cancer research subjects was stolen from a locked University of California San Francisco<\/a><\/strong> office. <\/p>\n 2008<\/strong>: Indiana’s Central Collection Bureau<\/a><\/strong> had offices burglarized by thieves who made away with a data base server that included social security numbers on 700,000 Indiana residents and customer-billing records for about 100 Indiana businesses. The server was NOT encrypted. <\/p>\n 2008<\/strong>: Many Google and CNET employees had their addresses and social security numbers exposed when Colt Express Outsourcing Services<\/a><\/strong> had their office burglarized. Colt Express’ offices didn’t have an alarm system at the time and soon went out of business.<\/p>\n 2010<\/strong>: Two burglars broke an outside widow to Silicon Valley Eyecare Optometry and Contact Lenses<\/a><\/strong>‘ office and stole a data base server containing information on 40,000 patients including their addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, e-mail addresses, birthdates, family members, medical insurances, and health information.<\/p>\n 2013<\/strong>: Wal-Mart’s streaming media provider Vudu<\/a><\/strong> admitted their physical office security was lacking after a break-in at their office, where thieves stole hard drives comprising all users’ emails, addresses, account activity, dates of birth, and credit card information.<\/p>\n 2015<\/strong>: A thief forced his way into the server room of children\u2019s charity Plan UK<\/a><\/strong>, taking five servers containing information on 90,000 supporters, including names, addresses, contact details, bank account numbers.<\/p>\n What can you do to counteract this? The bottom line is to trust a secure data center for your business operation as the likelihood that your office is more locked down than an enterprise NOC is low. Most offices are low-hanging fruit for robbers. <\/p>\n![\"MISSION_1_NocList\"](\"https:\/\/www.hostdime.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/MISSION_1_NocList-e1456261468110.jpg\")
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