New Case Study: Unmanaged GTM Tags Become a Security Nightmare

New Case Study: Unmanaged GTM Tags Become a Security Nightmare

June 19, 2024 at 07:46AM

Google Tag Manager (GTM) may not guarantee complete safety for tracking tags and pixels, potentially leading to misconfigurations and data breaches. A case study of a global ticketing company highlights the risks of mismanagement in GTM, with implications for GDPR and data privacy regulations. Reflectiz offers a solution for continuous web threat management.

From the provided meeting notes, it appears that the discussion centered on the potential risks and challenges associated with using Google Tag Manager for managing tracking tags and pixels. The case study highlighted a global ticketing company’s misconfiguration of Google Tag Manager, leading to a data breach and non-compliance with privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA.

The meeting also revealed a sample study of 4,000 websites using Google Tag Manager, indicating that 45% of all risk exposure was associated with the platform and 20% of connected apps were leaking personal or sensitive user data due to misconfiguration. Interestingly, it was noted that Google Tag Manager itself was responsible for the most cases of misconfigurations.

To address these issues, the meeting proposed considering employing a continuous web threat management system, such as Reflectiz, to provide complete visibility and control over tags, and security tools to issue alerts on any changes to tags for review and approval, satisfying the conflicting priorities of both marketing and security teams.

It was emphasized that while Google Tag Manager is an effective tool, careful management and oversight are essential to mitigate potential risks. The meeting also recommended reading the full case study for practical ways to ensure safe usage of tracking tags and pixels.

Overall, the key takeaway from these meeting notes is the importance of actively managing and overseeing the use of Google Tag Manager to ensure data privacy compliance and mitigate the risks associated with misconfigurations.

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