DNC Data Breach A Sign Cyber Crime Is Here To Stay
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NORTH TEXAS (CBS11) - While Democratic leaders scramble to move past a politically embarrassing Democratic National Committee email hack, the scandal has left other citizens wondering if anything is safe online: and the answer from North Texas experts is a resounding, sobering 'no.'
"It's a huge issue," says Brandon Scott with Horizon Air Charter. "It's everyday… you have to look out for someone trying to get into your system, trying to act like they're someone else."
And Scott makes the point well that it's not just retailers that have to worry. He says their business relies heavily on e-commerce, so they have multiple levels of security in place. Still…
"You can always try to stay ahead of it," says Scott, "but, people who commit these crimes are always ahead of you."
Kierra Hughes has an IT background. But, admits to at times letting down her online guard. "I'm at fault for saving my information online," says Hughes. So, she keeps a close eye on her account. "I try to check my account once a week, I have a friend that checks it every single day… to try to keep up with it. I think it's just monitoring what you're doing and knowing what you're spending, versus what other people could be spending on your behalf."
Meanwhile, experts say cyber crime is here to stay: with some even calling the online security lapses the third certainty in life. There's death, taxes and now data breaches.
"A lot of it is reactive, rather than proactive," says Hughes. 'And I don't think there's enough information on how to be proactive about it. You can't…because there are always tech geniuses, scammers…whether they are in the US, or Russia, doesn't matter where they are, people can always get that information."
And while money is the primary motivation behind attacks, earlier this year the non-profit Identity Theft Resource Center took note of another troubling trend. According to their report, thieves were "...obtaining sensitive and private personal data…to compel behavior changes in breached individuals and groups…" (Read: blackmail.) And according to the group's President and CEO Eva Velasquez, the information is even being mined to "…embarrass our nation."
The ITRC report goes on to say that as the motives for data mining shift, so must our mindset for what we need to keep private, protect and potentially cease creating.
"Especially with the DNC hack you have to be very careful what you put in an email," says Scott, "something you wrote three years ago could be taken out of context…be careful, you never know."
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