SITES DONT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOUR SECURITY

The sheer volume of reportage on hacking is overwhelming.   The sites being hit are the ones that you and I use every day.   Some provide useful information, some, valuable services and others perhaps just news or trivia.   We use them multiple times a day – sometimes without even being fully aware that we are,  like DropBox.   We use these sites  to store personal and business information, to connect us with potential clients, employers and employees, to help us choose insurance providers, to send us our groceries and some, to just play on.   Dropbox allows us to seamlessly log in by re-referencing a cookie they have planted on our computer to ‘verify’ our identity.   LinkedIn also uses the same technique when we log in.   

A user name and password. 

How secure is that ?   

Well,  not very,  given that both of these sites have been hacked and your and my personal information has been exposed to the dark hacking underworld.

And make no mistake the hacking world is - dark and very scary.   Read Misha Glenny’s Dark Market to find out just how dark and scary.  (DARK MARKET)   

Some of the hacks that have taken place over the last 12 months range from gaming applications (SONY HACK 100M IDENTITIES AT RISK );  to banking (CITIBANK) to security companies themselves (RSA)  to dating sites like (eHARMONY) to military suppliers (LOCKHEED MARTIN) to email marketing companies (EPSILON) not to mention the storage (DROPBOX) and social network (LINKEDIN) sites quoted above.   No one is immune.  

How does that make you feel?  You have entrusted your personal data to these sites.  What happened if yours was the email address that was stolen, that yours was the personally identifiable information that was used to create a new persona that was then used to buy a car or a house.   That was then found guilty of credit card fraud and that was then criminalised.    What if you had to then spend months or even years trying to clear your name?  What if your identity was used to buy child pornography and you were arrested and sent to jail wrongfully?    These things do happen and they have happened.  

You are at risk because the sites you use don’t take your security seriously. 

What have DropBox and LinkedIn done since being hacked?   DropBox now offer two factor authentication – as an option not mandatory.  LinkedIn have salted their passwords.   Wow.  !!!    All they are concerned about is the fact that the user experience should be untouched for fear of losing customers.    In other words they have thumbed their noses at you and said they will do the bare minimum and no more.   It is your problem.  

They don’t care and will continue to treat your personal data with flagrant disregard until they themselves suffer serious consequences like a hefty fine or threat of closure or licence revocation.   It seems that even negative publicity is not sufficient to make these companies do the right thing.   

But maybe if enough of their customers i.e. you, started making enough noise -  demanding that security be improved then perhaps they will start to listen.  The Arab Spring started with a single defiant cry that become a massive chorus.   Do you want to be part of that chorus or are you too fearful to push for change? 

Time to take the bull by the horns  and demand better security.  Take to the streets if need be.  We live in a time of dramatic change.  Embrace it.