Recently leaked Twitter documents that were stored on Google Apps highlight a deeper issue - namely, when everything you do is stored online, how will you protect your personal data? As Google revs up its new Chrome OS, phishing and hacker attempts will be exacerbated. How, exactly, will you deal with your data security in this brave new world of data portability?This week, Twitter had sensitive documents leaked in a roundabout
method that involved a Twitter employee being phished and their Google
password used to access sensitive data stored online in Google Apps.
TechCrunch, the final recipient of these documents, vigorously defended
their position on republishing the found Twitter documents citing leaks
(in whatever form) have always existed and served as an information
source. While true in a journalistic sense, it opens the door to a
greater question of data security in a world where all your information
is stored online in some fashion.
Protecting your personal information on the Internet has been an
ongoing struggle. Every time you interact, whether its a post to a
blog, comment in a forum or just tweet, you are growing the hacker
target on your back. Take this example:
I am on Twitter and micro-blog regularly to my account. From just my
Twitter account, you can get my full name and location. Now, within a
few clicks you can probably trace down my e-mail address from some
previous post to a forum, newsgroup or even comments on an article in
certain instances. At that point, even a semi-dense hacker has enough
information to launch a targeted phishing attempt against
me. Granted, I triple check any links I get in e-mail to
ensure it takes me where I am supposedly going, but I am someone who
works in the trenches of the online industry and have been trained from
DNA up to be careful of any kind of attacks.
Googles announcement of Chrome OS, an operating system that is
enhanced by Internet connectivity, creates a security conundrum of
mammoth proportions for the general populationillustrated by the
Twitter security breach. If you are compromised in a world of always-on
connectivity and data living in a personal cloud, the ramifications are
no longer just limited to someone reading your e-mail. They now have
access to anything that you did and can, in fact, lock you out of your
own account.
Grant Gross of PC World wrote an article last week citing how the new
Google Chrome OS promises a world with no malware, no security updates
and no viruses. Sure, Google has shown that it is pretty good with spam
guarding your mail accounts, but when it comes to protecting the user
against itself its not just Google but everyone that has failed.
Gross article contains a quote from Brian Chess, CSO of Fortify
Software that sums up the real issue The question is, is the system
going to be able to do a reasonable job of defending itself even in the
face of a certain amount of user error?
Every generation that adapts to new technology increases their
collective intellect regarding that technology. From the blinking 12:00
on your parents VCR to cell phones to computers, each successive age
group to adapt to the new technology takes as rote things the previous
age group struggled with. However, the Internet provides a mixed
bag of every demographic across the globe. Over time, those groups will
adapt and understand the underlying nuances of new technology a little
more.
However, a vast majority of these people currently look at Windows OS
as a black box that presents them a nice UI and relatively secure
access to their personal thingsso much so that people have no problem
keeping their taxes, personal data and even lists of their passwords on
their PCs. Even today, spyware and malware, phishing and other attacks
cause a boom for businesses that focus on PC security and data
recovery. Fast forward to a world where this data is living not only on
their computer but also accessible through some password scheme on the
Internet and youve got a formula for potential disaster.
Yes, Google is aware of this. Possibly no one understands online user
behavior better than Google, evidenced by their success both in product
development, adoption and their beefy stock price. However, the
intellectual gap may prove tougher to solve than any of its technical
hurdles. Lets hope, for the sake of the everyman, that Chrome OS has
such great security features that it stops users from inadvertently
giving away their data. Maybe the leak at Twitter is a good place
to start with beta testers.
Jack Margo is senior vice president of Internet operations
at Ziff Davis Enterprise.
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