Enough already with the hacking. This is just getting ridiculous now.
Seems like security breaches are all over the place, with the very public and continual cyber de-pantsing of Sony to the unsettling attack on Lockheed Martin, among others. And you know what? There are people out there who don’t really care about it all that much because they don’t think it affects them.
Well then, I’d be interested to know what they think of the latest: Citigroup, one of the top financial companies in the industry, was hit with a cyber attack that compromised the data of more than 200,000 customers. Luckily, the breach stopped short of CVV codes and social security numbers, but the hack did yield information like names, account numbers and email addresses.
Following the news breaking, the PR spin was actually a little nauseating. When a major financial institution has been infiltrated and customer data leaked, the worst possible response is: “Meh. Could’ve been worse — 200,000 is only one percent of our customer base,” which is more or less how they reacted.
Okay, Citi, it’s understandable that you want to downplay this, but maybe you need to look at it a different way: This isn’t like a shop owner seeing a toddler snatch some candy and shrugging it off. You’re an enormous financial institution; reassuring your 21 million customers that you’re taking security seriously might be a good thing to do. And please, take it more seriously than you do your communication policy.
The hack actually took place early last month, and only now has it started informing customers that they were victimized. Shades of Sony’s delay in alerting users, no?
Not cool, Citi. Not cool at all.
Where is that Cyber Security Awareness Act when you need it?
