IT Professionals

Malware Or Poor Planning?

Posted by on Apr 1, 2008 | One Comment

As far as I am concerned, this is an indicator that all of the affected individuals in this case could eventually become victims of identity theft. Talk about a real eye opener! Sort of makes you wonder how the involved IT and security teams are in finding a long term means of defense for next time. But to be fair, it seems like it may not have been preventable as this was an entirely new kind attack.

I do not think there is really any question any longer as to the risk of not better protecting your identity and most of all, trusting others to save your bacon. Whether it be some promising software program, advice on how to better keep your data safe, whatever – in the end, it’s never enough it seems. With consumer confidence fairly shaken, I am beginning to look into ways I can better protect myself. Sure, I already have red flags setup as I am not a complete fool as I work pretty publicly these days. But I am always hearing others saying that it may never be enough. The risk just seems almost impossible to avoid these days.

So what you are thoughts? Who is responsible here and perhaps more importantly, do we have the tools to actually protect ourselves anymore? It’s one thing to take responsibility for your own system, but when a company has a “flaw”, where does this really leave you?

  • Rich

    “Who is responsible here and perhaps more importantly, do we have the tools to actually protect ourselves anymore? ” —-

    Obviously, the responsible party here is the theives stealing the information. Just because you’re up to date on security doens’t mean you’re safe, just safer than you would be without the updates. Whos’s the responsible party in each and every new virus or worm attack? SOMEBODY has to be exploited before the cure can come out. It’s a game of “catch up.”

    And no, we can’t protect ourselves against every conceivable “flaw” or problem, because new ones (obviously) are found every day. Somebody has to get broken into before a patch can be created.

    “It’s one thing to take responsibility for your own system, but when a company has a “flaw”, where does this really leave you?” —–

    EVERY company has “a flaw”. More precisely, they have hundreds, if not thousands of potential flaws. They just haven’t all been found yet. Again, this is the department of the malicious information thieves. You can’t protect against something that doesn’t exist yet. As soon as a new flaw is found, it WILL be exploited. And it leaves us all in a position of needing to be very careful, very watchful, and HOPING we don’t get “info-jacked.”