Colonial paid the $5,000,000 ransom after all. Let’s face fact:
America is the bull’s eye for hackers world wide
but nevertheless
American companies prioritize profit FAR above customer safety.
I’m thinking in particular of banking. I rely on the internet almost 100% for my banking needs. NOT AT ALL thinking of personal privacy considerations, threats from the dark web, phishing scams, and so forth. Instead:
Thinking of circumstances akin to Colonial where hackers take out (at minimum) my bank or my credit union or, even beyond that, take down the entire banking system, or the Federal Reserve.
I have often wondered exactly how effective is financial industry internet security against an increasingly sophisticated cadre of hackers worldwide. Separate Americans from online access to our many financial accounts and we’re in a world of hurt . . . . just like the people in those gas lines.
How much money are the financial institutions spending to keep their systems up and safe from hackers? I hope they are spending more than Colonial obviously spent. Prioritization of profit over system safety is foolish. I just hope it is not ubiquitous among financial institutions.
On a personal note:
Many tens of years ago I was completing design of a computer having hundreds of external connections. Without telling anyone or advertising the fact, I quietly included mil-spec connectors in the design. Those things were gold plated, butter smooth, and over the years we never had a failure. But the cost of those military grade connectors was, as you would expect, relatively high.
Right or wrong, I still to this day believe I did the right thing. But had anyone been looking over my shoulder way back I doubt I would have been able to defend the cost in advance. I just believed in my gut that connector problems could drive our service people nuts and harm our customer relationships. I wanted to forestall any such problems, and that is what I did, albeit on the QT.
Doubt I could get away with such a way of thinking today. Pity.