The news that up to four million TalkTalk customers have had personal details stolen in a massive hack is serious enough – but suggestions that this crucial personal data may not have been encrypted seriously ups the ante.
The telecoms firm has revealed that information such as customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and partial bank details could now be in the hands of hackers. And we now know it may not have benefited from an extra layer of security known as encryption.
So what does this mean? Basically, unencrypted data is plain text – it can be read easily by anyone, without the need for special keys or passwords. But encrypted data is just that – encrypted. While hackers are able to steal it, they’re not necessarily able to read it or sell it on in any way – unless they have the key or code needed to unlock it, it is largely useless to them.
Encrypting data obviously has many uses, ranging from the obvious security benefits to companies holding personal data through to reassuring customers that hacks will not automatically see their personal information disseminated on the web.
It’s not a legal requirement, as TalkTalk’s CEO has been at pains to point out – but there’s a huge argument that it just makes sense to use it.
Hacking and cyber crime in general is on the increase, so no company is able to completely guarantee they will never be a victim, despite their best efforts. With this in mind, taking the best possible care with customer data, particularly sensitive information of exactly the type that can be used to scam people or clone online identities, just seems to make sense.
But that doesn’t seem to have been the case at TalkTalk, with CEO Dido Harding unable to guarantee all the data stolen was encrypted, although the company claimed that it had been kept securely (which is a very different thing).
But what does this all this talk of how secure the data was mean to us, the average user? Well, for starters, it’s a good lesson in finding out as much as we can about what each company who holds our personal data does with it, and how securely they treat it.
It’s also a good lesson, particularly if you may be one of those unfortunate TalkTalk victims, to keep an eye on your credit report, so you can see if anyone attempts to open new accounts in your name. If you do see any that you don’t recognise, contact your bank or financial services provider immediately, and also report any fraudulent activity to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or http://www.actionfraud.police.uk.
Looking to the future, moving to a place where we each have control of our data so that we keep our most important details safe and secure ourselves and share them only with people or companies we want to or trust is an obvious next step in the personal data revolution.
While companies such as digi.me are working on making just this happen, across multiple industries, for now you can keep your social media content safe and backed up with our free app – click here to get your copy now.