I recently interviewed Marc Goodman, founder of the Future Crimes Institute and author of the recently published book “Future Crimes: Everything is Connected, Everyone is Vulnerable, and What We Can Do About It.” In his book, Goodman sets forth with great precision the frightening extent to which current and emerging technologies are harming national and corporate security, putting people’s lives at risk, eroding privacy, and even altering our perceptions of reality.
In 2009, Heartland Payment Systems announced that it had suffered a devastating breach: 134 million credit cards were exposed through SQL Injection attacks used to install spyware on Heartland’s data systems. The company processes payments for debit, prepaid and credit cards, in addition to online payments and checks and payroll services.
Frankly, it’s costing U.S. businesses more than other nations’ enterprises worldwide, according to data collected in the 2014 Cost of Cyber Crime Study: United Statesfrom the Ponemon Institute and HP Enterprise Security. The mean cost of cyber crime for a company in the U.S. last year was $12.7 million per year; other countries’ enterprises mean costs ranged from Germany’s $8.13 million to Russia’s mere $3.33 million. The study observes a $1.1 million (or 9.3 percent) increase in cyber crime costs for the U.S. from last year’s report.
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