It never rains but it pours. Just as bosses and boards have finally sorted out their worst accounting and compliance troubles, and improved their feeble corporation governance, a new problem threatens to earn them, especially in America, the sort of nasty headlines that inevitably lead to heads rolling in the executive suite: data insecurity. Left, until now, to odd, low-level IT staff to put right, and seen as a concern only of data-rich industries such as banking, telecoms and air travel, information protection is now high on the boss"s agenda in businesses of every variety.
Several massive leakages of customer and employee data this year—from organizations as diverse as Time Warner, the American defense contractor Science Applications International Corp and even the University of California, Berkeley have left managers hurriedly peering into their intricate IT systems and business processes in search of potential vulnerabilities.
"Data is becoming an asset which needs to be guarded as much as any other asset," says Haim Mendelson of Stanford University"s business school. "The ability to guard customer data is the key to market value, which the board is responsible for on behalf of shareholders." Indeed, just as there is the concept of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), perhaps it is time for GASP, Generally Accepted Security Practices, suggested Eli Noam of New York"s Columbia Business School. "Setting the proper investment level for security, redundancy, and recovery is a management issue, not a technical one," he says.
The mystery is that this should come as a surprise to any boss. Surely it should be obvious to the dimmest executive that trust, that most valuable of economic assets, is easily destroyed and hugely expensive to restore and that few things are more likely to destroy trust than a company letting sensitive personal data get into the wrong hands.
The current state of affairs may have been encouraged, though not justified by the lack of legal penalty (in America, but not Europe) for data leakage. Until California recently passed a law, American firms did not have to tell anyone, even the victim, when data went a-stray. That may change fast: lots of proposed data-security legislation is now doing the rounds in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, the theft of information about some 40 million credit-card accounts in America, disclosed on June 17th, overshadowed a hugely important decision a day earlier by America"s Federal Trade Commission (FFC) that puts corporate America on notice that regulators will act if firms fail to provide adequate data security.
单选题
The statement "It never rains but it pours" is used to introduce ______.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】本题问的是“It never rains but it pours”是为了说明什么问题。这是原文的第一句话。根据原文第一段举的例子可知，此处的“倾盆大雨”是指美国公司碰到的新的麻烦：数据安全问题。因此，本题的正确答案为D。
单选题
According to Paragraph 2, some organizations check their systems to find out ______.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】本题问的是根据第二段可得知，一些机构检查系统是为了发现什么问题。根据题干定位至原文的第二段。原文第二段的最后一句话“…peering into their intricate IT systems and business processes in search of potential vulnerabilities.”表明，企业老板们面对数据泄露问题采取的措施是：经理们赶紧盯着他们复杂的IT系统和商业流程，以搜索可能存在的安全缺陷。由此可知，本题的正确答案为A。
单选题
In bringing up the concept of GASP the author is making the point that ______.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】本题问的是作者提到GASP的概念是为了说明什么问题。原文的第三段提到了Eli Noam说的关于GASP的观点，且该段的最后一句话明确说到，“Setting the proper investment level for security, redundancy, and recovery is a management issue, not a technical one, …”为数据安全、备份、恢复设立适当的投资标准是个治理问题，不是技术问题。由此可知，他认为公司老板不重视数据的治理。因此，本题的正确答案为B。
单选题
According to Paragraph 4, what puzzles the author is that some bosses fail to ______.
单选题
It can be inferred from Paragraph 5 that ______.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】本题问的是从第五段中可推断出什么信息。根据题干定位至原文的第五段。该段的第一句话说到，“The current state of affairs may have been encouraged, though not justified by the lack of legal penalty (in America, but not Europe) for data leakage.”现在这种状况，虽不合理，可能会由于缺乏对数据泄露的法律制裁而加剧。这是本段的主题句，由此可推知，法律制裁对于防止数据泄露的必要性。可见，D选项符合原文内容。因此，本题的正确答案为D。