In a late day announcement, it was revealed
that a major anti-identity theft company has been hit by a massive data breach
that resulted in the loss of the personal information of tens of millions of
customers. Citizens that have already been hit by one or more of the many data
breaches that have occurred of the past couple of years are in shock, wondering
what they will do now…
Yeah, this didn’t actually happen, not today at
least, but one day and probably one day soon, I feel positive it will and when
it does, it just might be the wake-up call to users that nothing is really truly
safe. Of course if it doesn’t happen, then that means those anti-identity theft
companies are doing it right!
But seriously, is this what it’s actually going
to take to get customers and employees to start actively demanding that
companies take more responsibility for the information they either willingly
give them, or are forced to give them for the ‘privilege’ of doing business
with their firms or to get a job? I personally believe that in the realm of
information security, people will have to be backed into a corner, with nowhere
left to turn before they get fed up with these companies and government organizations
to take information security as seriously as it needs to be taken in this day
and age.
Credit monitoring is a band-aid for the victims
of a data breach and ‘cyber’ insurance is a crutch for the companies and organizations
that are willing to pay the premiums rather than properly allocate sufficient
resources to properly secure user’s data. Don’t believe me? Let a user’s cable,
internet or cell phone access go down for even a few minutes and you will see
hell raised with a fury! Just ask any service providers customer service reps,
they’ll tell you. So until companies either willingly start doing what is necessary
to properly protect customers, or until users take it upon themselves to demand
such protections, the title of this article is destined to come true.
Discuss…
