Security's Everyman

Security's Everyman

Monday, November 26, 2007

BREAKING NEWS: MAJOR DATA BREACH!!!!

I was just informed by one of our IT guys that there has been a massive data breach at TJX, the parent company of several "discount" department stores. It seems that someone was able to penetrate their wireless network............................... wait, what was that? This happened last year?

That was the gist of a conversation that I had this morning. One of the guys I work with came to me and asked if I had heard of the TJX breach. He just found out about it last night while watching 60 Minutes. I was stunned.

A couple of things clicked in my head after this. One, this explains why they have continued to have good sales numbers. Either people don't care or don't know.Two, this shows how easy it is to get caught up in your own little world and not realize just how uninformed the public can be. Three, we really need to do a better job in getting the word out about such things. Of course I'm not sure what we as IT and Security Professionals could do about this. It's been all over the news and multiple media outlets. Yet there are still some who are unaware of it. I don't understand how someone could not know. I guess in this case there is an exception to the saying "no man is an island unto himself".

1 comment:

bw said...

I saw this on a BBC News report when I was in China or Russia right after it happened. It's not like this stuff has been hiding. But my friend didn't immediately grasp the ramifications of the news, I had to explain the significance to him and point out that this was the largest breach of this kind ever.

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