Facebook Hacked Again?

The latest news is that Facebook has been hacked again, this time for a mere 50 million users. Is this cause for alarm? Not for those that don’t use it. But for others, organizations, politicos, and others it might be. Counting to Billions!!

An old question asks for the identity of the world’s best con man. The answer is the one(s) never detected. Yet the question is reflected from con men to hackers. Who’s the best? The answer is exactly the same.

Note that Facebook has unlimited resources to protect their data as do other large-scale companies. Most have also been hacked. What we do not know are those companies that have been hacked and haven’t reported it. More significant are those hacked companies that don’t know it and maybe never will. If the hacker is not greedy, and extracts data in a disciplined manner, it may never be detected even with competent IT people available.

The other problem is that most IT people have not the skills of dedicated hackers. It comes to two armies facing each other, but with one having much better weapons.

This is not a matter of politics, votes, or personalities. It is a matter of penetration and the capacity to do so. If you don’t mind, I’m totally frightened. With my information at banks, credit card companies, medical facilities, with email, purchases, the IRS, other govt agencies, and more, I am stymied, powerless, and checkmated.

We need governments with expertise to help battle these problems, but unhappily governments are totally involved with games of “small ball.” So far, silly governments react only after the fact, using fines. These fines are less than rounding errors for such giants.

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