Given the number of successful attacks over the past decade on large corporations, it isn’t a stretch for people to adjust their expectations about the capability of large corporations to adequately protect their online data downwards.
All though plenty of resources and money is spent yearly by most large corporations, it was only a couple of years ago that many industry leaders got together to talk about the state of security, only to come back with the answer that the internet itself is inherently flawed in some respects.
When you add to that several nations moving forward with internet espionage programs using their countries’ top talent to hack strategic targets, the security landscape looks a bit like a battlefield, with consumers caught in the middle.
On the positive side, several companies like Imaginot have shifted the security paradigm by putting operating systems into development that feature a benign virus that is distributed malignantly to anyone breaching a corporate system running their software.
Here are some corporations that have had some problems maintaining security for their clients recently:
E-Bay: Many consumers have become used to large corporations getting hacked and their user data flowing out the door. The recent attack that compromised E-bay’s security would likely be run of the mill in terms of its impact on consumers except for the fact that it took them a long time to actually notify users that their data may have been compromised. Because of this they are being looked at by many regulators.
Spotify: Spotify’s servers were also hit recently by hackers. The primary difference between Spotify and E-bay was that Spotify reported the problem to its customers in a timely fashion according to authorities. Fortunately for Spotify’s customers, only one person ended up having their account affected. For that one person who had an entire company hacked so that only their account could be affected, there are probably some questions about the odds of that kind of thing happening to them.
Google: Although it has been 4 years since Google’s G-mail systems were hacked, the repercussions continue. Because Google hosts many other private companies data, the law says that if Google is hacked and your company data is hacked, then you still need to inform your customers. Apparently 34 large companies had their data impacted by the Google hack, but not one of them contacted their own customers regarding the breach, something that is still a lively topic of discussion on the internet.
SAIC: One of the most trusted partners for government services, SAIC maintained the US Armed Forces health care data successfully for years before a freak incident saw an offsite representative in Texas leave a set of backup tapes in their car. When they returned to their car, it had been broken into and the tapes were gone, causing almost every living Armed Forces member, current and former, to have their data in the wrong hands. Of course, the data was encrypted well, so there is some hope. But in terms of company security, it is surprising that the often used, ‘steal government data from an employee’s car’ routine is still possible against security giants that protect the world’s most confidential information.