Yet another computer hack | Chatham Daily News

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It seems that hardly a day passes that we do not read about another computer hack of a company with a large database of information, exposing the personal information of millions of customers.

The latest in this sad parade of perfidy is a data breach at T-Mobile affecting almost 50 million people. T-Mobile is a leader in 5G wireless communication and has more than 100 million customers.

The breach involved details of customers and prospective customers who had applied for credit. It included names, birthdates and social security and driver licence numbers — all the information needed to spoof someone’s identity.

And It gets worse. About 850,000 customers also had their personal identification numbers stolen.

In a statement, T-Mobile said: “Customers trust us with their private information and we safeguard it with the utmost concern. A recent cybersecurity incident put some of that data in harm’s way, and we apologize for that. We take this very seriously, and we strive for transparency in the status of our investigation and what we’re doing to help protect you.”

Nice words but this is at least the fourth security breach at T-Mobile.

Security breaches happen all the time. Consider: Yahoo, three billion accounts compromised; Alibaba, 1.1 billion pieces of user data exposed; Linkedin, 700 million users compromised; Facebook, 533 million users compromised; Marriott International,500 million users compromised. The list goes on and on.

The most prevalent reason for breaches is that companies do not take adequate care with their customer’s data.

The worst part is that people who trusted these companies with their data are now faced with potential identity theft, changing PINs, replacing debit and credit cards and anxiously waiting to see if they have been compromised.

The companies say sorry and sometimes pay a fine, but life goes on until the next security breach.

There is no excuse for multiple security breaches at large companies.

Sure, software is complicated and you cannot always be aware of bugs in a program until a breach occurs. But there are things that can be done to minimize the odds of suffering a breach and also…

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