#Middlebury #Cybersecurity
By JUSTIN GOLDEN
As one year ends and a new year begins, we should look at a couple of significant 2019 hacking and data breach incidents while preparing for the upcoming year cybersecurity wise.
One of the most prominent incidents in 2019 concerned Capital One, a bank and issuer of credit cards. Over 100 million U.S. and 6 million Canadian customers’ personal information was exposed by an employee of their web hosting provider, Amazon Web Services. These data comprised names, addresses, credit scores, dates of birth and payment history information for people who applied for a credit card. Included were the Social Security numbers of over 135,000 people. The cause was improper implementation of an application firewall.
Another 2019 incident was at Macy’s, where an unknown number of online accounts were exposed when customers ordered from their web site. This information included names, addresses, telephone numbers and payment card data. This breach was due to a poorly designed web ordering application.
In light of the rash of ransomware incidents (bad actor takes control of your computer(s), network and data, encrypting it until you pay them a fee to release it, or they threaten to expose sensitive and confidential information) which have occurred this year in the city governments of Atlanta, Baltimore, Miami and New Orleans and even in a local school system, things may only get worse.
Gil Press, in the Forbes magazine article “42 More Cybersecurity Predictions For 2020,” shared what cybersecurity experts were predicting for 2020. Jon Oltsik at Enterprise Strategy Group said, “At least three states will declare states of emergency due to waves of ransomware … we predict there’s a 20% chance this could escalate to a national level.”
Peter Duthie of Ground Labs said, “Data is more valuable today than gold … organizations will need to put more focus on discovering where all their data lives, determining whether it’s sensitive and how best to secure it.”
KC Fox of Radial said, “With online shopping showing no signs of slowing down, fraudsters are moving away from in-store fraud and instead prioritizing card-not-present fraud.”
The expression, “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door” should be followed by, “Then cybercriminals will soon hack into it.” As we continue to evolve into an ever increasingly interconnected world, innovative new technologies have vulnerabilities. With them come risks. We are all potential prey for digital scammers.
The Internet of Things (any computing devices with a microprocessor that can communicate with other devices without human intervention) means your smartphone, watch, appliances, light bulbs, home assistant and security cameras are set to worsen the issue. Anything from a device the size of a pin to an airplane can be hacked, the Cyber Peace Foundation warned.
Strap your seat belt on. It’s going to be another year of innovation paired with risk.
Golden Technology Services Inc. helps customers reduce their cybersecurity risks. Contact them at 972-679-9738 or justin.golden@gtscloud.com.
