In the wake of this month’s Equifax data breach, BIO-key CEO Mike DePasquale is urging readers of his company’s blog, “Don’t Get Mad, Get Furious”.
Clearly exasperated, DePasquale argues that the breach – and the many others that followed it – don’t so much illustrate that hackers are a step ahead of us, but rather that “we are a step behind due to business rules, policies and short term performance mandates.” And there is evidence to back him up: Just this week, Accenture released findings from a survey of risk managers in which only 10 percent said they had the resources they need to effectively mitigate digital threats. And the latest update to Gemalto’s Breach Level Index found that between the second half of 2016 and the first half of this year, companies’ encryption of data actually decreased while data breaches shot up 164 percent.
Fortunately, there are some bright spots in the this dismal picture. Windows Hello, for example, has significantly extended biometric authentication options for consumers, with BIO-key’s USB fingerprint readers designed to offer out-of-the-box compatibility. And DePasquale notes that major breaches like the Equifax hack can prompt a positive response from the industry, with one BIO-key client having just arranged to move forward with a months-long project after having previously decided to put it on hold until 2018.
This is the kind of “take-charge behavior that can change the dynamics of security forever!” DePasquale exclaims. And while some readers may find themselves even more dubious about security attitudes in the enterprise than DePasquale, it is undeniable that if more organizations would take a proactive, forward-thinking approach to digital security, hack attacks like the Equifax breach would be far less frequent.
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