PowerKee’s Bastion of Privacy #28 — Volkswagen is the latest business behemoth that has suffered a major cybersecurity attack
The data security challenges faced by top companies across the world have continued. One of the top car manufacturing companies, Volkswagen, revealed that the data of over 3 million customers has been breached.
This is just one of the many data breaches that have been reported this year. Incidentally, these reports are showing up at a time when data privacy and security are a major topic of discussion across several jurisdictions.
In the latest Bastion of Privacy, we highlight some of the events surrounding the Volkswagen data breach. We detail some of the recent developments in terms of mainstream data privacy regulations while also considering how netizens can implement more preventative technology tools.
Development Update:
The PowerKee Team works with full forces on implementing design related code changes into the wallet. Several code related issues have been experienced over the past week when testing the PowerKee wallet on the mainnet. Our newly hired QT developer and the rest of the team is solving occurred problems and is making sure the code presented to the auditor has been tested sufficiently. Once the design is finally implemented into the wallet the code will be handed over to an auditor again to make sure no beta tester will experience bugs. The mainnet is already well tested and works well since several months. Beta Testers will be contacted soon.
Volkswagen breach exposes weaknesses
According to Volkswagen, what was affected was a compilation of data that was used for marketing purposes between 2014 and 2019. The breach did not happen directly on Volkswagen’s server or storage infrastructure. Rather, it was an associate vendor’s platform that was compromised.
There are fears that the sensitive data of certain individuals may have been exposed. The company is therefore taking measures to minimize the consequences of the data breach as far as the affected individuals are concerned. 163,000 of the victims are reported to be from Canada while 90,000 of them are from the United States.
Breaches like this expose the weaknesses of traditional cybersecurity systems. As mentioned above, the data breach occurred on the platform of one of Volkswagen’s associate vendors. Meaning that, even if Volkswagen had ensured proper data security at its end, it might be unrealistic to ensure proper follow-up with its vendors and partners across the globe. Such attacks can happen through various methods as illustrated below.
(Source: Straightedgetech.com)
Legislative bills proven ineffective
Many of the legislative approaches that are popping up towards data protection are simply a collection of secondary measures after breaches have already occurred. The goal of regulators should be to make companies that hold individuals’ data more responsible and accountable.
For instance, the government of Texas has introduced a new bill that will amend the Texas Business and Commerce Code. The new bill will require notifications to individuals and the Texas Attorney General following certain data breaches.
In another development that does not seem to address the root cause, two companies were fined a total of $43,000 in Indonesia in the aftermath of data breaches that affected personnel of the country’s Ministry of Defence and its Armed Forces. In both instances, it is the companies that face repercussions but the data of their customers nonetheless. There is little discussion about taking the adequate preventative measures moving forward.
Blockchain as the complete toolkit
In an era where huge volumes of transactions are carried out on the internet, blockchain technology provides a more secure network for managing and storing data. With cryptocurrencies especially, where privacy of transactions and anonymity is often required, a privacy-focused platform like PowerKee offers an attractive solution.
Rather than scrambling to respond to breaches, entities at risk of cybersecurity attacks need to start taking preventative measures. Those that have digital assets and have data that is exposed to online attacks are a key entity in this category. Blockchain tools and privacy-focused cryptocurrency networks should be a key consideration for such entities.
About PowerKee
PowerKee is a cryptocurrency network that makes privacy easy. Users can transact cheaply and instantly while maintaining anonymity. The PowerKee protocol uses a mixture of zero-knowledge proofs and coin mixing to provide strong privacy assurances to its users.
