It is always best to learn from the mistakes of others, rather than your own. So take a look at a few of the worst commercial security snafus of recent history, shake your head, and vow to do better than these poor saps.
1.) 40 Million Credit Card Numbers Up for Grabs
In 2005, MasterCard had to step up to the microphone, and admit that one of its processing companies, namely CardSystems Solutions, had put 40 million of its cardholders at risk. 200,000 had already been victimized. This ridiculous breach of trust was made possible because CardSystems decided to store the data on an unencrypted server. Why? For research, of course. One of their top executives was big enough to confess, “We should not have been doing that.”
2.) 4.5 Million Bank Account Numbers, Missing
The Bank of New York Mellon had a no good, very bad day in 2008. Their internet security was rock solid. The problem happened when they backed up all of their
customers’ data onto ten tapes. While moving these tapes to storage, one mysteriously disappeared from the back of the truck, in transit. It happened to hold social security numbers and bank account data for 4.5 million of their customers. And by the way, those tapes? Not encrypted.
3.) 25 Million British Citizens Exposed to Identity Theft
It’s hard to be practically perfect in every way. HM Revenue and Customs in the UK found out the hard way what happens when a very large office makes a very small mistake. The HMRC only lost two little computer discs in the mail, but that opened up the window on the names, addresses, insurance numbers, and in some
cases, banking information of 25 million UK citizens with children under 16. The HMRC tried to blame the courier for breaking company protocol, but it later came to light that the fall guy only did as he was instructed, the same as he had done many, many times before.
4) 40 Million Credit & Debit Card Users Breached
And the most recent event – Target Corp had a massive security breach involving nearly all of Target’s 1,797 stores in the United States when thieves hacked into credit and debit card data of as many as 40 million Target customers over the 2013 holidays. This breach rattled nerves and roiled Christmas shopping.
