2011 - The Year In Security So Far

2010 was a year filled with breaking news of big companies that had data breaches and exposed the personal data of millions. Who can forget the stories of companies like McDonald’s, Walgreens, and the AT&T iPad exposure? These are just a couple of the top stories from last year.

To date this year, cybercrime has absolutely outperformed last year. Criminals are breaching even more well-known and trusted companies, and getting away with even more data.

• Sony – Hackers stole over 100 million personal records from the Sony Online Entertainment system.
• RSA – Makers of security tokens, RSA, had their SecurID devices compromised as the results of a security breach. The company provides security tokens to 25,000 organizations and an estimated 40 million people use the tokens.
• Some of the information collected in the breach was used as an element of an attempted attack on Lockheed Martin.
• Epsilon – We wrote a previous blog post about the breach at Epsilon, the company that handles email communications for over 2,500 companies including Best Buy, Capital One, JP Morgan, TiVo, US Bank, and more.
• Other companies or organizations that have been hacked this year so far include:
• NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, who lost confidential satellite data
• InfraGard, a FBI affiliate
• European Commission
• WordPress
• Trip Advisor
• The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (EEE)
• Gawker Media
• Trapster
• The Pentagon’s official credit union

Securitynewsdaily.com reports that the experts are concerned that companies, small and large, aren’t taking security seriously enough. They also foresee the trend only getting worse until companies start making changes. Cyber criminals are choosing companies with weak security and prey on their weakness. Ondrej Krehel, information security officer for Identity Theft 911, says that companies that have switched to less expensive data storage solutions, "such as cloud computing," may have erred on the side of convenience and left themselves vulnerable in the process.

A first step in the right direction for enterprises, commercial banks, and other organizations is to invest in SafeCentral’s WebProtection™ to make sure VDIs and cloud services connections are secure and that the endpoint data is safe.

SafeCentral’s WebProtection™ is a one-time install application that actually assumes that your machine is already infected with malware and ensures that the information on your computer stays secure. WebProtection™ interprets and intercepts over 5,000 discrete Windows commands and effectively blocks all potentially dangerous activities except those processes needed for the transaction. Learn more about how it actually works and how it keeps your information safe at www.SafeCentral.com.