Data in the headlines
Data breaches often make the headlines. how does the media report them?
Info
This module builds on the learning about protecting personal information to ask what businesses do to protect the valuable information they hold about us. They have a legal responsibility to protect our information but they are constantly targeted by illegal hackers looking to steal it.
Personal information is valuable to businesses, as well as hackers; where we live, work and shop is useful data, especially when compared to the internet searches we make or the comments we post about what our friends do or say on social media. All the personal information we give to companies can be used to sell advertising. We are profited from and the more information we give away, the more money can be made from us.
It’s not just personal information that hackers want to steal from businesses. Intellectual property is the ideas, plans and products belonging to companies or individuals. This could be the designs for a dress, a new phone or even a warship. Or it could be the songs for an album or the script for a TV show. Ideas can be worth a great deal of money and companies and governments must take care to protect them.
The fastest way to get hold of personal data is not to hack the individual.
If I hack you, I get your data. If I hack Google, I get all their customers’ data.
But it’s impossible to hack big companies, right?
Wrong. There’s big money in hacking big business and big fines for businesses who can’t protect our data.
