WHEN I first started using the Internet back in I-already-forgot-what-year, the hack attacks I knew of were mostly DoS attacks or the usual get-in-get-the-date-get-out-without-getting-caught stuff. I didn’t hear much about those hacks where data is destroyed, wiped out, mulched to nothingness. But, then again, there wasn’t much online data yet back in those days.
Fast forward to the last decade, at least. We’ll all realize that almost all our data are stored in some data server somewhere in this planet. Pretty much everything is online. "On the line" as Billy (The Internship) would put it. Coincidentally, I think he’s right. Our data is on the line. On. The. Line.
Lorenzo of Mashable writes: "On Aug. 15, 2012, a group calling itself the "Cutting Sword of Justice" hacked into the network of Saudi oil giant Aramco, and destroyed all data on 30,000 of its computers. Less than a year later, another mysterious group of hackers self-identified as the "Whois Team" launched a cyber-attack on South Korea, hitting some of the country's banks and TV companies, and wiping multiple hard drives in their computers.”
That’s a gigantic oil company. We would all think that cybersecurity for them will be a top-level priority and getting into their networks won’t be a walk in the park. And yet, only two years ago, a group of hackers managed to do that kind of damage. You might say though, “So what?”. I’m not employed by a gigantic oil company. Yes, you’re not. But you’re on Facebook, right? Twitter? Instagram? LinkedIn? Google? Despite all our beliefs that these companies seem to be impenetrable, I’d defer to the thought that they are, in fact, vulnerable. Credit card companies are hacked even. And those are companies that put a platinum kind of premium to cybersecurity. What makes you think that Facebook is impenetrable?
Recently, Sony Pictures Entertainment was hacked. That hacked resulted in five films that got leaked into the wild including Annie and Fury. If Sony can be exposed just like that, what more the possibility of all other companies that are connected to the cloud? Think about it.
Now that it’s there. Data hacks are an everyday part of life in this ever-increasing digitized world of ours. Let me share what Christina wrote in her article for Mashable as four takeaways from these epic Sony hack.
Here are a few key security takeaways that regular users can apply to their personal or business security.
1. Don't store passwords in the same place as password-protected documents
2. Use two-factor authentication for all essential services
3. Keep financial and healthcare documents stored separately from other data
4. Paying for security is worth it
On a lighter note, this is something to look forward to.