I was reading about how a 20-year-old man was arrested in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Tuesday afternoon and was charged with an unprecedented hack of the country’s tax authority, ending with the theft of sensitive personal records from nearly every adult in Bulgaria.
The question is what happens when a country’s entire adult population is hacked?
The scope of this attack is vast, and the number of unanswered questions remains significant.
The email the hacker sent to journalists with the leaked data came from a Russian email address. No one is quite sure what that means yet, but given the tension between Russia and Europe, especially in cyberspace, it’s a detail that’s attracted immediate attention.
Closer to home, the Bulgarians are looking at their government and wondering what went so badly wrong.
Its quite a thing when someone else (trusted?) loses control of your data like this. But its happening more and more.
More of a reason to be more choosy about who you trust with your personal data but also more of a reason why companies may want to rethink holding the data at all! Zero-knowledge proof, client side processing, etc is all part of this. But asking that question about the value of holding such data and liability of doing so is even more important.
Till we finally get a grip on this, more headlines like this will become more common place.