Social: Twitter Was Hacked - So Were Others LIke the NYT. Expect More Of This

All Things D.

More than 250,000 Twitter accounts were hacked. Luckily, mine wasn't among those but I'm sure that day will come. And this happened via Twitter, not individuals who were phished or something.

With today's short term media attention, I want to remind ourselves that earlier in the week, the New York Times claimed to have been targeted by Chinese government backed hackers. I know there is no evidence that Beijing had a direct hand in it but, come on, it's China we're talking about.

Later, the Wall Street Journal as well as the Washington Post revealed that they too had the honor of the Chinese probing them from the back.

Needless to say, it's only February and we've for 11 more months to go in 2013. We're looking at a lot more of this for the rest of the year and beyond.

It won't be just social media sites or media giants. I think government sites are next as are public facilities like water, gas, and power facilities.

So ATD is right. It isn't who will be the next to be hacked but who will admit to being hacked.

And what's also right is that there are companies out there that are not aware of security breaches into their networks.

So it kinda makes you wonder about any PC, phones, or tablets you own.

For mobile users, our fear isn't necessarily about our smartphones or tablets. However, it's the data that apps you download and install that we have to worry about. We simply don't know what kinda of data these apps are pulling from our devices. On top of that, we have to trust Apple, Google, Blackberry, and Microsoft to police their app stores on our behalf. The trust we put in Google is doubly more important because it make money off user data.

Just this week, up and coming social network Path was fined $800,000 by the FTC for violations. The fine was for allowing children onto their network and collecting their information. And this is a very good iPhone app that we thought Apple would have done its vetting before allowing the app into the store.

So whether it is companies or individuals, hacking is going to be the norm and the only one thing to know about this and one defense we users have.

We have to know that companies we give our information to will most definitely get hacked. And the only defense we have is common sense.

- Posted using Mobile