Alas, it is true. Our online security systems are as tragic as they possibly could be, and although it seems straight down stupid to have an outdated system guarding our identities and online profiles in this modern day and age, the harsh reality is that we’re protected by a moderately cooked string of spaghetti in a middle of a gun fight.
To follow up on that analogy, your password may even come from the random combination of letters that you got out of your alphabet soup, and even if the common suggestion is to update your passwords regularly, that will protect you as much as coloring yourself in different shades in a middle of that previously mentioned battlefield.
So when I say check your inbox, I actually mean it, because 21.5 million of us are expecting some really bad news. What troubles me in fact is the image of a group of officials of the OPM, sitting in Washington, passing around a laptop, mumbling “no, you do it,” all dressed up in suits with month salaries as high as our year incomes. But who am I to judge, right? Well, I couldn’t possibly be one of the affected, but the reality is 0.7% of the U.S. internet users are. That percentage looks a lot better than 21.5 million, and it almost feels like winning the lottery. The kind of lottery where you actually pay 160$ on average to change all of your personal identification and data endangered. That’s how much it actually costs you to do so, FYI, so ladies and gents, it seems like we have wandered off into the no man’s land.
On the other hand, pay attention all you lovers out there, because Ashley Madison just got hacked! I guess thou shalt not commit adultery wasn’t enough, so now thou shalt pay hackers ransom not to tell your significant other what you’ve been up to lately. Let’s take a look at those numbers! 37 million of users are about to get publicly branded as pigs and harlots, and this web portal is going down, so it has become obvious to all of us that we are not a nation that takes its protection seriously.
All jokes aside, when is it going to be too much? This year is going to be the worst so far when it comes to data breach count. The numbers are actually increasing by the month, and every year is the worst year, so please allow me to feel ambiguous over the fact that someone can take responsibility for 21.5 million of personal records exposed and just say: “Oh well, I quit!”
No, sir, and ma’am, that just won’t cut it! If your job is to protect me online, please count on the fact that some of us are simply computer illiterate, and even if I decide to bang my head on the keyboard repeatedly until all internet breaks down, you should be behind my back, smacking some sense into me. It is simply your job to do so. And in all seriousness, could it be possibly true that most of our troubles could’ve been avoided simply by using remote support access, and that this solution is available for years now, while our vendors and institutions are still using VPN systems, which is apparently a cheerful playground for hacker groups?
As a passionate online shopper, who loves reading reviews, I have to say that I’ll start choosing my online systems more responsibly, since most of the companies and institutions don’t seem to do so. We are all online, and soon enough it will become a matter of to be, or not to be.