Identity is Security: Privacy Pains

Is there a bounty on privacy? That’s the question we’re exploring following SailPoint CMO Juliette Rizkallah’s latest Forbes article on the rising use of smart technology in our home. From Wi-Fi-connected baby monitors, home security systems and even Alexa—our home and office environments have changed quite a bit from dial-up and corded telephones. Working in identity management definitely keeps your mind tuned in to what and where your personal data is being used for. As we know, hackers are always willing to pay top dollar for our information, so it should go without saying that we all could stand to be more mindful of where we ‘let’ them in as our world becomes more and more connected.

Pivoting from our real home to a digital home, another Facebook scandal has rocked the social media site. News broke this week that Facebook stored millions of unencrypted user passwords in plain text for years. Facebook has truly gone from bad to worse when it comes to protecting their users’ privacy, and even though there’s been no breach so far, the investigation is still evolving. With that in mind, it wouldn’t hurt to change those passwords before you login to Facebook again today – as the old saying goes, it’s not ‘if’ but ‘when’ a breach will happen.

And speaking of data breaches, another article that got our attention this week was from Bloomberg. A Bloomberg news analysis gathered data on major breaches involving almost 200 corporate, government and non-profit organizations over more than a decade. While I think we’ve all grown used to seeing data breaches making headlines, seeing this list was still an eye-opening one for me, and I’ve been following the world of identity and security for long enough that you’d think I’d be unphased. Wrong.

With that, we leave you to wrap up your week. Let us know what security stories caught your eye.