考研英语阅读命题思路透析和真题揭秘(43)

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 astray. 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 (FTC) that puts corporate America on notice that regulators will act if firms fail to provide adequate data security.

40. It can be inferred from Paragraph 5 that
[A] data leakage is more severe in Europe.
[B] FTC's decision is essential to data security.
[C] California takes the lead in security legislation.
[D] legal penalty is a major solution to data leakage.

[答案] D

[解题思路]

本题对应于文章的最后一段。首先，原文中并没有比较美国和欧洲在数据泄漏问题上的严重性，因此A选项显然是错误的。C选项对应于该段第一、二句话"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 astray"（ 目前的情况可能与缺乏有关数据泄露的法律处罚（在美国，不是在欧洲）有关，尽管还没有的到证实。在加利福尼亚最近通过了一项法律之前，美国公司不必告知任何人关于数据的泄露情况，甚至包括受害人），第一句话的括号内容显示欧洲早已有这方面的立法，因此加州在这方面不是领头羊。B和D都对应于该段最后一句话"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 (FTC) that puts corporate America on notice that regulators will act if firms fail to provide adequate data security"（同时，6月17日有关美国约4000万信用卡账户数据被盗事件的披露，给此前一天美国联邦商务委员会的一个重要决定蒙上阴影，该决定请向全美国的公司发出了警告，如果公司没有实施恰当的数据安全保护措施，那么监管人员就会采取行动），但B选项中的"essential "表述过于绝对，D选项则符合原文的内容。

[题目译文]

可以从第五段中推断出
[A] 数据泄漏在欧洲更加严重
[B] FTC的决定对于数据安全有根本性意义
[C] 加州在安全立法方面处于领头地位
[D] 法律上的惩罚是数据泄漏的一个主要解决方案