Data Breaches will Happen!
Be mindful of the Line!
If you have been following the news, ChatGPT was taken offline because a bug in an open library has exposed sensitive details out to others. This is the news that inspired this post.
Let us not kid ourselves here and continue to tell ourselves data breaches will never happen to us, or it is others responsibilities to ensure the privacy and safety of personal data.
If you have studied cybersecurity or have read up on the basics of it, you will understand that cybersecurity is all about putting as much obstacles between the hackers and the information they are seeking. Good hackers are the one that can tear through or avoid those obstacles by either pure brute force or exploiting loopholes such as social engineering and well-disguised phishing mechanism. So again, let us not kid ourselves here and say data breaches will never happen. This is akin to what Chinese called, “Covering the ears while stealing the large metal bell”. Moreover, if there are no proper regulations, companies will generally protect your data with the minimal costs and negative impact to their business processes.
I hope to keep the newsletter open to as many as possible. If you have benefitted much from the newsletter and will like to join my cause, consider making a “book" donation. Link at the bottom of the newsletter or here. :)
Here is what I recommend, although I cannot guarantee it is foolproof.
Pay a lot of attention to your passwords! By now you’ll know the passwords rules, such as having symbols, minimum 8 characters, etc. Have a few sets of passwords to work with. Assign the different sets based on the importance of each of these accounts, especially those that contains your credit card details.
Be mindful of each account that you open. Ask yourself if you are going to use it often or not. If the answer is not often, perhaps ask yourself if you need it? If the answer is “Yes”, then be mindful of information you are sharing with the business and constantly ask yourself if it is worth it to hand over those information in exchange for the services that you need in association with the account.
Why the tagline of the newsletter? Here is a method that I usually ask myself when I share something online. Be mindful of the line, the imaginary line between what is in your mind and online. Because anything that crossed the line will be recorded and can be shared easily once it falls into the wrong hands. Whatever that can be shared can also be used to infer more information about your behavior as well. This is coming from a data analyst/scientist who has been working with data for the past two decades.Be mindful of the Line. :)
These are a few suggestions I have. To switch to a paradigm of learning to protect your data, my suggestion is to up your Data and Cybersecurity Literacy as much as possible as these are going to be life skills (similar to Financial Literacy) that are needed to survive the 21st century.
Your thoughts and security tips? Please share them in the “Comments”! :)
Recommended Content
If you want to know more about the ChatGPT outage and possible data breach. <OpenAI>
I have written a long form post of the “Algorithm War is Coming” newsletter. <Post>
Interview with Michael Ng, Data Analytics Manager at Agilent Technologies <Podcast>
Recommended YouTube video on how cybercrime organization works <YouTube>
Thank you sir