IT systems nowadays are almost as important to the running of a lot of companies as the workers, and just as important is the measures that put in place to ensure the ongoing security of these systems so that the sensitive data held within is kept safe. In the situations where the security systems are not up to scratch, the networks are left open to cyber crime, which can lead to the loss of this data, or even worse for it to fall into the wrong hands. There are many stories all over about companies, and not just small ones, experiencing huge data loss due to a failure in securing their systems.
As this is being written in November 2011, Microsoft has recently been forced to deny that its Xbox Live system has been hacked, and to say that it is just phishing scams responsible for users of the platform finding fraudulent transactions being made from their account. The Sun newspaper in the UK insists they have been hacked. If true it would be highly embarrassing for such a large global corporation to have holes in their security system
2011 was a bad year for the big gaming console giants, as in April 2011 Sony's Playstation Network was hacked, leading to 77million account details including password and credit card details being stolen. They had to switch it all off for a few days when fixing the problem, and a lot of people have not gone back due not trusting Sony to prevent it happening again.
Heartland Payment Services are a payment processing company in America who process over 100million payments a month and even they were not too big to fall victim to a hacking attempt as malicious software was placed on their system and it took lots of credit card details. This was very embarrassing for a company who so many people put their trust into.
Similarly, in 2007 T.J. Maxx security breach cost them in the region of a reported $118million in that year, and was expected to rise into the Billions. Millions of credit card details were stolen on their systems and in total it was estimated that in the end it may have cost them $100 for each record stolen.
Now for a large multi-national or global corporation, losses such as those reported in the cases above will have been painful but they have the resources to carry on. If this happened to a small to medium sized business the effects the effects could be catastrophic and could even lead to closure.
As this is being written in November 2011, Microsoft has recently been forced to deny that its Xbox Live system has been hacked, and to say that it is just phishing scams responsible for users of the platform finding fraudulent transactions being made from their account. The Sun newspaper in the UK insists they have been hacked. If true it would be highly embarrassing for such a large global corporation to have holes in their security system
2011 was a bad year for the big gaming console giants, as in April 2011 Sony's Playstation Network was hacked, leading to 77million account details including password and credit card details being stolen. They had to switch it all off for a few days when fixing the problem, and a lot of people have not gone back due not trusting Sony to prevent it happening again.
Heartland Payment Services are a payment processing company in America who process over 100million payments a month and even they were not too big to fall victim to a hacking attempt as malicious software was placed on their system and it took lots of credit card details. This was very embarrassing for a company who so many people put their trust into.
Similarly, in 2007 T.J. Maxx security breach cost them in the region of a reported $118million in that year, and was expected to rise into the Billions. Millions of credit card details were stolen on their systems and in total it was estimated that in the end it may have cost them $100 for each record stolen.
Now for a large multi-national or global corporation, losses such as those reported in the cases above will have been painful but they have the resources to carry on. If this happened to a small to medium sized business the effects the effects could be catastrophic and could even lead to closure.
About the Author:
If you own a business you should consider investing in managed security services. Part of this will be to implement disaster recovery systems for such events.
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