One would think that the U.S. financial system and U.S. government sites would be much less vulnerable to hacking than almost any others tethered to the Internet. That turns out to be untrue. Hackers broke into one of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis sites. And, in a worrisome warning in the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s 2015 Annual Report, the authors wrote that much of entire financial sector is at risk. Hackers still have not hit the Holy Grails of their activity, which must include Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB), the social network that has 1.3 billion members. Sooner or later, the sophistication of hackers will overcome Facebook’s defenses, just as it has many of the most well-protected sites in the world.
It says in the Financial Stability Oversight Council 2015 Annual Report:
Over the past year, financial sector organizations and other U.S. businesses experienced a host of notable cyber incidents, including large-scale data breaches that compromised financial information. While security technologies and user awareness are improving, malicious cyber activity is likely to continue in the future. Even more concerning is the prospect of a more destructive incident that could impair financial sector operations.
The media jumped on the news. The analysis, the authors implied, means that banks and bank customers face greater risk that in the past. So do stock exchanges and other places valuable commodities are traded.
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Facebook’s security has to be among the best in the world. Its members store private information on the site that ranges from credit card data to private communication among members to location information. Some of these data are used by advertisers to target members. Any of this information, if released, would not only cause a disclosure of this extremely sensitive information. It may also instantly cause Facebook members to lose confidence in the social network, which could do it substantial damage.
Hackers have proven two things. One is that they can stay ahead of the most sophisticated software defenses. The other is that they show their skill by hacking some of the world’s most visible targets as a means to demonstrate their prowess. What more perfect target than one that is used by over a billion people and has to be protected as much as any other target in the world?
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