Why People Are Freaking Out About the Exactis Breach
Over 340 million people had their information compromised by the data aggregation firm Exactis, per the Associated Press. Poor security practices by firms in the United States have resulted in major hacks within the last 4 years, exposing significant amounts of private information. These compromises combined with other major compromises allow hackers to use this information to layer data that's been hacked. Similar to other hacks, poor security practices combined with low quality tech talent gave the wrong people an edge and the compromise resulted in over 340 million accounts being exposed. For people who think this can't happen to the cryptocurrency community, think again - both poor security practices and low-quality tech talent are ubiquitous in the tech community.
Five years ago, I predicted we would see the worst hacks in the future because I correctly identified four disturbing trends that continue to this day with no end in sight:
- Most people in tech are not qualified to be in tech. This gives hackers a major advantage, as hackers are results-oriented in their approach, while most tech workers are incompetent.
- Most firms do not know how to qualify tech talent, worsening the above problem.
- In my entire career, I have not seen one good design in cyber security from a United States firm. Whereas we see no major hacks like this in the People's Republic of China, the United States is one of the worst countries for cyber security.
- The solutions to all the hacks have been bureaucracy, which will only increase the problem. Bureaucrats do not respond to incentives, hackers do.
As the old saying goes, show me the incentives, and I'll show you the outcome, cyber security compromises will continue to grow because none of the four observations have changed.
Do you want exceptional results? Do you want to work with someone who's strategic about cyber security? Do you want to find competent cyber security talent? You can get in touch (YouTube option). Unlike most tech firms who recruit talent for companies with security expertise, I have accurately predicted what has happened and will continue to happen. In addition, the few firms that follow my design have experienced no compromises and have no worry (if I'm the architect). If I hire people, you can be assured, they're actually qualified by incentives, not by impressing people in absurd manners.
If you continue to believe the people who recruit incompetent talent, you will continue to see abysmal results.
The hacks will get worse and consumers will continue to grow angrier, which will eventually causes significant costs on firms. Of course, the irony of all these hacks is that we may be witnessing the hyperinflation of the digital world, where everyone loses faith in it permanently.
For those new to SQL In Six Minutes, the below are three recent series from this year. Each series covers relevant material that will grow with importance over the next decade or more.
Artificial Intelligence Series
- Will Artificial Intelligence Destroy All Humans (No)?
- What No One Says About Artificial Intelligence: Costs
- What Is Artificial Intelligence? A Sensible View
- The Best Applications For Artificial Intelligence
Elementary Statistics Series
- Why Precisely Defining the Population Matters
- Why Ceteris Paribus Matters In Statistics
- What Is the Average (Mean) and When To Use It
- What Is Regression To the Mean and Why Does It Matter?
- What Is Median? Why Use Median?
- What Is the Mode?
- What Is the Law of Large Numbers?
- Applied Example of What We've Learned So Far
- How To Calculate the Variance and the Standard Deviation
- How To Calculate the Standard Deviation Part II
- TSQL: How To Get the Percentile
- TSQL: How To Get the Quartile
- TSQL: How To Get the Outliers In A Data Set
- Data Tendency and Spread: Practice Examples
- Data and Variable Types
- How We'll Use Mathematics and Statistics In This Series
- What Is Probability?
- Considerations With Random Probability
- Factors Influencing Probability
- Probability of Independent Random Events
- TSQL: Gambler's Fallacy Demo (Surprise Too)
- Gambler's Fallacy Part 2 (Follow-Up)
- Conditional Probability
How To Find Truth In Information Series
- How To Discover Truth In Information Part 1
- How To Discover Truth In Information Part 2
- How To Discover Truth In Information Part 3
- How To Discover Truth In Information Part 4
As a measure of security for SteemIt, outside an incompatible rule change, this account will never be powered down or have Steem or SBD removed. In addition, if this happened due to an incompatible rule, the reason would be stated on a linked account for verification.
While data can help you discover truth, it can lead to a situation where the chickens come home to roost. In my course, Automating ETL, I will be teaching students about the drawbacks and advantages of data this year, pertinent to the future and why this will continue to matter. Sometimes, it's less about what you can store and what you have ready to store and more about the if of storage.
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