Your Personal Data is Already Stolen
Full article226 words · extracted from schneier.com · click to collapse
In an excellent blog post, Brian Krebs makes clear something I have been saying for a while:
Likewise for individuals, it pays to accept two unfortunate and harsh realities:
Reality #1: Bad guys already have access to personal data points that you may believe should be secret but which nevertheless aren’t, including your credit card information, Social Security number, mother’s maiden name, date of birth, address, previous addresses, phone number, and yes even your credit file.
Reality #2: Any data point you share with a company will in all likelihood eventually be hacked, lost, leaked, stolen or sold usually through no fault of your own. And if you’re an American, it means (at least for the time being) your recourse to do anything about that when it does happen is limited or nil.
[…]
Once you’ve owned both of these realities, you realize that expecting another company to safeguard your security is a fool’s errand, and that it makes far more sense to focus instead on doing everything you can to proactively prevent identity thieves, malicious hackers or other ne’er-do-wells from abusing access to said data.
His advice is good.
Tags: breaches, data breaches, data collection, data loss, data protection
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/12/your_personal_d.html