There is no shortage of news stories dealing with cybercrime and data breaches. From Citigroup admitting that computer hackers breached the bank’s network and accessed the data of about 200,000 bank card holders in North America, to the huge data breach at Sony and its Playstation Network, it’s all over the news. The latest incident: in late July The Washington Post alerted job seekers who use its employment pages of a data breach that compromised up to 1.27 million accounts. The publisher wrote on its website that the “Jobs” section was attacked by an “unauthorized third party” once on June 27 and once on June 28. The attackers obtained user IDs and e-mail addresses, but apparently did not get passwords or other personal information.
If some lawmakers have their way, companies would have to pay when a data breach occurs.