Data Breaches Threaten the Entire Internet. Here’s the Only Viable Solution …
The data breach of 50 million Facebook users is not just a social media problem.
Nor is it strictly an excuse for investors to dump their tech stocks, sending them into a nosedive like we saw this week.
It’s the symptom of a chronic disease that threatens the entire internet … that’s spreading rapidly … and that cannot be cured with any tactics currently used by the world’s largest corporations or governments.
You know what I’m talking about. You’ve seen it all over the news:
At Equifax, hackers stole personal data from 145.5 million U.S. consumers last year. Its stock plunged and has been struggling to recover ever since. Just this morning, the company announced still another management change — seven months after the massive security breach.
But the Equifax disaster was not the largest breach. Not by a long shot.
The great MySpace hack of May 2016 impacted 360 million users.
The Yahoo! mega-disaster, revealed in September 2016, hit an estimated 500 million users.
Data thefts at eBay, Target, LinkedIn, AOL, Sony, Uber and Home Depot were each bigger than Facebook’s.
All huge threats to shareholder assets! All capable of sinking any major stock, anytime, anywhere.
But if you think damage to people’s wealth is of urgent public concern, what about threats to people’s health and life? Consider this:
The Great Hospital Breaches of 2016-’17
In July of last year, the Arkansas Oral Facial Surgery Center came under a cyberattack. One that shut it out of the medical images and records of 128,000 patients.
Similar attacks affected 106,000 patients at Mid-Michigan Physicians … 266,123 patients at Pacific Alliance Medical Center … 300,000 patients at Women’s Health Care Group of Pennsylvania … 176,295 patients at Peachtree Neurological Clinic in Atlanta … 1.1 million patients enrolled in Indiana Medicaid & CHIP … 4.8 million enrolled in Molina Healthcare … and many, many more.
Also in 2017, the National Health Service of England and Scotland came under a massive ransomware attack that impacted at least 16 of its organizations. Within two days, health facilities in 150 countries were hit by similar attacks.
Cyberattacks on 911 Centers
Just this past weekend, Baltimore’s 911 dispatch system was hacked. This forced a shutdown of its automated systems, as call center staff scrambled to relay emergency information to dispatchers manually.
Last year, cyberattacks paralyzed 911 call centers in more than 12 states, including Texas, Florida, California and Washington.
Over the last six days, the city of Atlanta has been taken down by ransomware attackers, making it difficult for most of the government to function.
And it gets worse …
Attacks on the U.S. Energy Grid
Earlier this month, the Trump administration blamed the Russian government for cyberattacks on the U.S. power grid.
The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI reported that, beginning in March 2016, or possibly earlier, Russian government hackers sought to penetrate critical infrastructure sectors, including energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation and manufacturing.
They warned that a “multi-stage intrusion campaign by Russian government cyber actors” targeted the networks of small commercial facilities “where they staged malware, conducted spear phishing, and gained remote access into energy sector networks.”
How is This Possible?
The reasons should be obvious:
More data is being stored in central locations.
With the rise of Big Data, those databases are growing by leaps and bounds.
With the advent of the Internet of Things, networks will also include most automobiles on the nation’s roads, moving parts on factory floors, and pieces of merchandise on retailer shelves.
The data is massive, extremely valuable, and extremely vulnerable.
Like giant pots of gold, sitting and waiting for bad actors on the outside — or on the inside — to get their grubby hands on.
And as the internet grows, it can only get worse. Until, that is, it’s replaced by …
A New Internet, Based on The Same Technology That Underlies Cryptocurrencies
Weiss Ratings cryptocurrency expert Juan Villaverde covered this very issue on Monday and updated his post this morning.
“The core reason we’ve witnessed so many data breaches,” he writes, “is because databases are controlled by a single, central authority.
“Centralization is the true root of the problem. So, it follows that the only truly viable, long-term solution is decentralization.
“The technical term is ‘Distributed Ledger Technology’ — a secure, encrypted database shared across multiple users, companies or countries.
“And THAT is what cryptocurrencies or crypto platforms are all about.
“In a world where Distributed Ledger Technology is mainstream, data breaches are virtually impossible. Each user holds the key to all of his or her private information. No government or corporation gets access.
“Private information is not stored in a central location. So it cannot be stolen. It cannot be used by adversarial governments to mount cyberattacks or interfere in election processes.
“To pursue any of those missions, they would need to hack into each and every computer of every individual user, a virtually impossible feat.
“We know because we have solid, real-world evidence that it’s virtually impossible to hack into the Bitcoin network, which uses the same technology. It will be equally impossible to hack into the private records of tens of millions of users.”
A pipe dream? No. These technologies are being built as we speak. That’s the crypto revolution, and it’s just beginning.
It’s also just the beginning of the profit opportunities we believe are possible using our crypto ratings to drive your crypto investment strategy.
That’s the strategy that could have turned $10,000 into $599,521 in just 12 months (a period that includes the Bitcoin crash of 2017-2018).
And that’s also the strategy we use in our Weiss Cryptocurrency Portfolio.
For more information, go here.
Just bear in mind that the final deadline for joining is this Friday, just 48 hours from now.
Best wishes,
Martin D. Weiss, Founder
Weiss Ratings
