Privacy and security continues to be a huge issue online, and how that goes has game changing implications for brands, consumers and providers – and obviously marketers trying to tiptoe their way through it all and IT pros trying to keep their company’s data safe.
A recent EU initiative aims to give people the right to be forgotten online, although Britain remains sceptical at how this will work in practice, with the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office cautioning: “Our concern is about how difficult (or impossible) this may be to achieve in practice and how it could lead individuals to believe falsely that they can achieve the absolute erasure of information about them.
“We know from the efforts of well-resourced and motivated individuals that it can in fact be impossible to remove information from the internet once it has been posted. We are concerned that this right, as billed, could mislead individuals as to the degree of protection the law can offer them in practice.”
Google remains at the front line, with European regulators blasting the search giant for continued EU privacy violation, the German data regulator fining them €145,000 (£124,000) for recording and storing data illegally from unsecured Wi-Fi networks with its Street View camera cars and their own departments reporting unprecedented requests from governments wanting them to remove content.
Hackers are more visible and active than ever, with 93% of large companies reporting a cyber security breach in 2012, with state and defense companies being most targeted. Mostly it does seem to be that the hackers don’t really have to try very hard, with the vast majority favouring authentication-based attacks that worked because of the weaknesses inherent in the password system.
Twitter profiles have been the subject of highly-reported hacks already this year, and has recently announced it will be introduce two step authentication, which it plans to roll out soon according to Mashable.
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