Nice People Thread No. 14, all Nice and Proper

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

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I've been doing some research on cyber security today. What a fascinating topic. The average US company is targeted 135 times a year and 3,000 companies in the US were unaware that they had been hacked until after the FBI called them! One company lost 200,000,000 client details. The board had been all over cyber security so the Head of IT simply lied to them about what he was doing.
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I think you might enjoy this book Gen :
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18154.The_Cuckoo_s_Egg

I read it many years back. The technology aspect is of course dated, but it's still completely valid. I've worked with quite a few penetration testers and I was disappointed few had come across the book.

Re: TalkTalk, I would have pointed them to the likes of these people
http://www.tripwire.com/

Threat detection is nothing new; but it should be part of their solution; not all.

I'm still less than convinced by the company's response to the issue. The fact that it seems it could be one 15 year old boy is almost academic.

mystic_trev

CKhalvashi wrote: »

I'm worried about Inner Herts, where it borders Outer Herts with Eastseaxe now :D

If it gets any deeper they're going to twin Inner Herts with Outer Australia.

GDB2222

Generali wrote: »

Should be okay with a Miele. They're pretty solid. I wouldn't bung an Indesit or something down a hole though.

I've been doing some research on cyber security today. What a fascinating topic. The average US company is targeted 135 times a year and 3,000 companies in the US were unaware that they had been hacked until after the FBI called them! One company lost 200,000,000 client details. The board had been all over cyber security so the Head of IT simply lied to them about what he was doing.

Another company had 8.5 million client details sold by their Database Administrator!

What happened at Talk Talk is typical and is very likely to cost them more money than they have. If they lost 4 million customer records that will cost in the region of £400,000,000. That's more than their total profits since 2010 quite comfortably.

It appears that TalkTalk may have been hacked by a 15 year old. How much more embarrassing could it get?

michaels

kabayiri wrote: »

Contextually rich customer data is worth about $40 a record; basic info about $1.5 a record.

It shows where the value is.

Sounds like there may be companies that (depending on the sign up T&Cs that nobody reads) may be worth much more for their customer data than for their business model. Perhaps a niche for some sort of 'buccaneering' VC fund to take over struggling companies and sell off their customer lists?!

silvercar

GDB2222 wrote: »

It appears that TalkTalk may have been hacked by a 15 year old. How much more embarrassing could it get?

People choose TalkTalk on their pricing. They know (or should know) that customer service is non existent, not surprising that protection of customer data is also weak.

kabayiri

michaels wrote: »

Sounds like there may be companies ot that that (depending on the sign up T&Cs that nobody reads) may be worth much mroe for their customer data than for their business model. Perhaps a niche for some sort of 'buccaneering' VC fund to take over struggling companies and sell off their customer lists?!

Companies already make money from the exchange of customer marketing data.

There is a company in South Manchester which I shall not name. In fact, it's a holding company for a number of brands which have featured elsewhere in MSE. Their publicised line of business will be familiar to anyone who may have had a slip, trip, or fall in the last few years ...

However, the less publicised side of the business is in a very structured and active data market. It's very profitable, and it's not always clear when consumers navigate an online offer, where they actually end up opting in/out to these lists.

Disclaimer : I have no financial/employment association with this company, and make no moral comment on their line of business.

PasturesNew

michaels wrote: »

Sounds like there may be companies that (depending on the sign up T&Cs that nobody reads) may be worth much more for their customer data than for their business model. Perhaps a niche for some sort of 'buccaneering' VC fund to take over struggling companies and sell off their customer lists?!

It's been going on years. Most buy outs are just about buying the customer lists. They don't want the companies, just the ability to market to a whole new bunch of people.

That's why so many redundancies are usually announced after a take over; they never had any need/intention to run the company.

CKhalvashi

PasturesNew wrote: »

It's been going on years. Most buy outs are just about buying the customer lists. They don't want the companies, just the ability to market to a whole new bunch of people.

That's why so many redundancies are usually announced after a take over; they never had any need/intention to run the company.

I think largely that is the case, however definitely wasn't when we bought the 2nd office (which is on the mainland).

I've always tried to look at it from the side that I have a new set of people, with different skills and the ability to use that to market further outwards.

With the most recent takeover (a UK one affecting 8 staff), we're bringing back an old trading name (one that was last used in about 2012) and will be offering standalone services in addition to those contracted.

Net effect of this will be the ending of a second office lease, however no staff will be going, despite the company (which has now been liquidated) we bought running at a loss for the last 2 years of its life.

SingleSue

Josh got his DSA approval letter yesterday, a total of 540 hours of non medical help (note taker, specialist mentor etc) is the main and most important thing. A small mistake was made as in the needs assessment, a point had been made about needing travel support but they hadn't put it in the summary, so that is going for a revision.

A little bit late but we had started the process before the summer holidays, he had then decided he was going to do an extra year as he thought he had failed everything so it was put off and then of course, he got his grades and off he went to uni.

So the process took from mid August to now, not bad at all really and much faster than I expected looking at stories from others. To say both Josh and I are relieved is an understatement, the uni have been great and have been covering some of his support as they knew an application was going through but now he can receive the full support without him feeling awkward about it.

CKhalvashi

Congrats, Sue!