Rubenerd

Having just lambasted (sounds like an old school Shaggy song) cloud computing for data breaches and privacy concerns, I think it helps to remind myself/ourselves that "traditional" in-house server systems aren’t exactly bullet proof either. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

From a report on The Register:

Shell has been hit by a massive data breach – the contact database for 176,000 staff and contractors at the firm has been copied and forwarded to lobbyists and activists opposed to the company.

Richard Wiseman […] said: “the Global Address List, containing contact information of everyone in Shell and some contractors, joint ventures and other third parties, has been downloaded without authorisation and distributed to some external parties. We do not know who did this. We are investigating and are raising this theft of information with the relevant data protection authorities.”

Just as we know that if you have a virus on your machine its already "too late", this was what I was thinking before I even finished reading the article:

[I]f hackers have got access to Shell’s systems then they might have more mischief planned.