As illustrated in previous blog posts, the
Ashley Madison data breach has had many consequences, and many victims. The consequences
from the stolen data will last for years for many people. It sometimes takes
years to clear up the mess that identity theft can have on people. I have been involved
in a data breach, and I have had my data stolen during the data theft from the
Sony PlayStation Network in 2011. Although my identity has not been used (yet),
I had to put a credit freeze on my account for 10 years in case someone tries
to use my identity to gain money in my name.
As we come to
hear about the increasing number of companies that have had they cyber security
breached and data has been stolen and released, we are becoming increasingly desensitized.
The data breaches are only getting bigger and bigger, and they are effecting
more and more people. The breaches are also effecting people from the many
different segments of society; no one is immune. Data protection and the hackers
that are trying to obtain the data are playing a cat and mouse game, in which
the eventual losers will be us.
It
seems that people don’t care when they are not directly affected by identity theft
and data theft. If it doesn’t affect you, why bother caring? Also, what can we
do about it? As consumers, the only thing we can do it to use our voice, which
is our spending money. If we boycott and refuse to use a company or a web
service, that company will eventually listen to our demands and their profits
drops. As consumers, we need to demand that more money is to be spend on cyber security,
and that more needs to be done to protect our data, which should not be taken
for granted.
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