Some Like It Hot

There’s at least one data breach story waiting for me to get around to as I sit and write this. When I wake up tomorrow there will almost certainly be a new one.

Cybersecurity has been going through a bit of a meltdown right now as breach after breach has rendered any hope of keeping your personal data secure within the aether of the internet dead. I’m at a loss of what else to say about it, unless you’ve spent the last thirty years living in the woods you’ve almost certainly been compromised in the last 5 years. Between the massive Equifax breach in the past, to more recent targets like Samsung and (squints) ah yes, now U-Haul, you’ve gotten got as they say.

Who’s at fault for that? There are several legal battles ongoing to answer that very issue. Last week I talked about Joe Sullivan and Uber’s legal finger pointing spat about who tried to hide the mess. This week I wrote about former Twitter security chief-turned-whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko who testified before a senate committee today about Twitter’s lax security stance as the appear to have knowingly welcomed foreign agents to join their company and partake of sensitive user data. That means the governments of the likes of China, Saudi Arabia, and India also have your personal data now, for very little trouble it seems.

“Well, since we already have one, what does it matter if we have more? Let’s keep growing the office,” A twitter executive reportedly said in response to the news, Woof.

The situation simply doesn’t seem tenable on the long term and good or bad changes are on the horizon. As customers lose money, property, and privacy those corporations who’ve taken security for granted will find their income dry up alongside their credibility. It takes a long time to build a secure relationship with a customer, and one small indiscretion to destroy it forever.

Cyber and physical security solutions to these problems exist and are available to be put into effect immediately. Security industries are predicted to explode financially in the coming decade as the demands and need for privacy grow in tandem. Certainly, there’s only so much more that can be written about the need for cybersecurity before the lesson sticks. Nobody’s Perfect, but C-Suite that understand the importance and value of that lesson going forward will feast.

Those that don’t continue to fiddle as Rome burns.