Hacking: it can happen to YOU

I’ve been spoiled lately. Almost all my flights have been smooth since last fall. I even visited Europe for a customer this past month, and had clear sailing over the Atlantic and back. Other than one brutal trip home from Detroit in January, it’s all been good.

                But in almost fifty years of flying, I’ve never gotten used to turbulence. I absolutely hate it. My wife, who barely flies, deals with it better than I do. So I have been very lucky in recent months, and haven’t been sweating getting off the ground. And that’s how it goes. We get cocky when we go long periods without a bump.

                 I see the same thing with clients. Hacking? We’ve never been hacked. That stuff happens to other people.

                There have been some pretty high profile breaches in the last couple of months. After one of these hit the headlines, their biggest competitor called me in to discuss what I knew of the case. I had read between the lines in the newspaper coverage, and provided some analysis. But it was clear in the first ten minutes, they weren’t worried so much about securing their assets as they were about passing their next audit. Their auditors, they said, would be tougher after the recent news.

                When customers say they’ve never had anybody try to hack them, it means they haven’t been looking hard enough. “We make porcelain doorknobs, who would want to hack us?”

                It doesn’t matter who you are. If you’ve got sensitive data, somebody somewhere will know it, and they will go after it.

                It CAN happen to you. Unless you don’t let it.