These days you can’t go a week without hearing about governments, companies, and other organizations dealing with major data breaches. It’s so commonplace that sometimes people don’t stop to consider the effect all these data loss events can have. As it pertains to the individual, there is always the chance, if a company gets breached, or loses data from a disaster or a hack, that your anonymity is a casualty. After the media attention fades, there are millions of people that are left exposed and companies, some huge multinational conglomerates, that don’t face any repercussions.
Since the very beginning of the year, over 10 million personal records have been lost or stolen on a daily basis. As a result, chances are high that you or someone you know has been victimized by a data breach. However, since many individuals and businesses are never notified, they may have incorrectly come to the conclusion that they are not at risk. This, unfortunately, is not the case.
Not long ago, a group referring to itself as the Shadow Brokers distributed hacking tools utilized by the United States National Security Agency (NSA), on various publically-accessible websites. While the motives of the Shadow Brokers are a story for another time, an investigation seems to have locked in on a particular theory of how the Shadow Brokers came into possession of the tools in the first place.
There’s no questioning Apple’s dedication to the advancement of technology, especially over the past few decades. With the iPhone being the first of many commercially available smartphones, Apple has always been at the forefront of exciting consumer technology developments. Now, however, their most important decision yet may come in the form of a face-off with the FBI.