A colleague of mine recently pointed out some rather blatant errors he had seen in a publication he had been reading. While hearing about these mistakes, the thought occurred to me publishing is one occupation that keeps its practitioners humble. When all goes smoothly issue after issue, we editorial types can exhibit a tendency to become a bit overconfident, perhaps a natural reaction borne of a successful track record–but a dangerous one, too. Because just when we start to think we've got it all figured out . . . whack! That's when the typo appears in bold on the cover or the month noted at the top of the table of contents in a huge type size is wrong or a less-than-politically-correct comment inserted as a joke in the editing process never gets deleted. Allow the fear of embarrassment that drives editors to double check every comma to diminish, and the eagle eye that kept the content pristine may start to wander, raising the potential for what we might term a humbling experience.

This tendency is not restricted to wordsmiths–which had me wondering about a remark one CIO made to me a few months back. In talking about what's hot and not in the industry, he put the issue of security into the category of ho-hum news–pretty much under control, no longer very pressing, and even plain, old boring. And based on other similar conversations, he's not alone in his view. For me, that raises a question: Is this a whack attack about to happen?

According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer information and advocacy organization, more than 100 million records containing sensitive personal information have been reported as involved in security breaches beginning in 2005. For the first two months of 2007, several medical facilities were listed as were a few financial firms, including an insurer. In that case, the listing noted cassette tapes containing customer information (names and Social Security numbers) were stolen from a lock box held by one of the company's vendors. Among the other instances, W-2s sent to current and former employees in January included employees' Social Security numbers on the outside of the envelope. Executives indicated the mishap was an error by a third-party vendor. Both cases highlight how important it is to remain on high vigilance–these may be explanations, but even if the fault lies with third parties, the blame goes to the company using these services, as it should.