That ignited debate in the legal division at Lutheran Life Communities as to whether the company should even be accepting email that appears to violate rules such as HIPAA and the , regulations that carry punishment and fines for violations.

DeRoche says the company has decided to start sending warning messages back to the originators of email that violates its security and privacy policy, saying the company can't willingly accept the messages in their current form. He notes there's a need to establish more business-partner agreements where these type of data-protection issues are spelled out in advance.

Lutheran Life Communities, which like many firms has not found it easy to establish a way to get myriad business partners using encryption, set up SharePoint as an external portal intended for business partners to share confidential data with the company. It's a password- and encryption-based system that works but is a tad "awkward" for end users, DeRoche notes.

Banking is another industry where mistakes made by others have an unwanted impact.

Cybercriminals are proving adept in tricking both retail and corporate online banking customers, sometimes carrying out elaborate scams to lure victims to fake phishing sites to steal account information or even hijacking PCs with to make fraudulent transactions through Automated Clearinghouse (ACH) services.