Does the name Brian Howard ring any bells? It should. Howard was a contractor for the FAA who took down a critical piece of infrastructure in our nation’s air space. But he didn’t hack into their system to do it. No password stealing or phishing attempts. Instead, he walked right through the door, cut key telecommunications cables, doused them in gasoline and lit them on fire. The fire shut down the center for 17 days and delayed 11,027 flights. Airlines estimated the incident cost them $350 million.
In another incident, a Chicago colocation facility was broken into four times within two years. Thieves literally cut a hole through a wall and walked away with approximately $15,000 worth of servers every time. That cost doesn’t even begin to calculate the damage done to the building, the company’s reputation, or by the loss of data.