Are You Tired Of Hearing About Data Breaches?

With every year setting new records for data breaches (nearly 1,600 last year alone), I'm wondering if the public is becoming fatigued and numb to the news of another breach. Even the massive Equifax breach, which compromised very personal and critically non-changing information of at least half of the adult population, I've found people not knowing about it and even more not understanding what it means.  That may change after people start filing their taxes, only to find that someone else has filed a false return ahead of them.

Studies from social media activity are being reported, showing that people who have been notified of a data breach that affects them are simply ignoring the notice. They aren't changing passwords or enrolling in protection services, just hoping nothing happens. If their credit cards are compromised, they are inconvenienced, but they get a new card and never check to see if anything else is amiss.  The winners are the thieves, because there is little chance that they will be caught.

In the case of massive breaches like Equifax, Yahoo, and Anthem, the culprits are likely foreign entities, perhaps government-sponsored, so prosecution is exrtra difficult. They will sell this info to others who need new identities or want to open accounts or get jobs with the stolen data. The lack of prosecution -- credit card providers rarely pursue who makes false cards or bogus purchases -- creates an ever-growing opportunity for cyber criminals.

This fatigue hurts efforts to solve the problem. There is a flurry of activity right after a big breach, but it quiets down soon. One expert says, "If people don't care about data breaches, lawmakers will have no motivation to beef up laws to protect against cyber threats" (Rui Chen, associate professor of information systems at Iowa State University).

All that said, it is human nature to start ignoring a problem if it doesn't affect us immediately, or we take minimal steps to recover, then move on.  I don't know how we combat that, beyond encouraging people to enroll in some kind of service like IDShield or Lifelock or Zander Insurance, all which work quietly in the background to watch for problems and fix things if needed. Again, though, it's hard to part money for a service if nothing has happened. Unfortunately, if an identity is truly stolen, the restoration is very expensive if you don't already have a service in place.

So how about you? Are you getting tired of hearing about data breaches? What steps have you taken to protect yourself and your family? I'd like to hear. Comment to this post, or send me an email.
#idtheft #identitytheft

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Equifax Provides More Details of Hacked Data

Orbitz Reveals Breach Of 880,000

Should I Be Concerned About Criminal Identity Theft?