The powers that be in South Carolina recently divulged to the public that the State Department of Revenue computers were hacked and 3.6 million Social Security numbers have been exposed. As an aside, the population of the whole state is 4.2 million. Apparently 387,000 credit card and debit card numbers were also exposed.
Our governor, when asked why the SSN’s were not encrypted, replied that there was no need for encryption. Excuse me! I think that if the security was so lax that the systems were hacked, it speaks loudly and plainly that the need for encryption is there.
News reports say that the vulnerability has been closed, but it doesn’t state that encryption will be SOP from now on.
The state now has to pay a credit monitoring company for a year for 3.6 million people to ameliorate the damage that could be done.
Our governor was proud to say during her election that she supported, and was supported by, the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party. That explains a lot, doesn’t it?
1 comment:
I read a book that says the cyber attacks against the government, military, and public utility websites are a bigger threat than Islamic terrorism. What is the government doing about it? Right now, just talking.
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