Being an observer of trends I've noticed something in the digital landscape this year and I have predictions about what's to come in 2015. The latest Sony breach in my opinion was a shot across the bow of the U.S. and businesses storing critical data better start paying attention. We are now ushering in a new age of cyber warfare, fear, intimidation, and electronic breaching that if done on a massive enough scale can make visible millions of people's financial and personal information, as well as very likely bring down the entire financial well-being of our markets if the right systems and access to those systems becomes compromised. More than half of major corporations and medium sized businesses wouldn't even be able to protect themselves from what I believe is coming down the pipes due to a "it hasn't happened to us yet so who cares" attitude. This Sony thing was just the beginning and the people who will be carrying out these digital invasions aren't terrorists, they're simply hired keyboard mercenaries who know the value of raw data and are being paid extremely well to extract it. Of course they'll threaten and try to scare us as they go along, that's the hacker mentality. Granted, Sony is one of the most insecure networks due to them not giving their IT staff what they need to become digitally adept in today's world, but how many other Sony's do you think are out there? Take a look at Staples who were breached 2 months ago and are just now informing people of data loss. Maybe Target, Home Depot, JP Morgan, Microsoft, etc add a bit more fuel to my tirade, and those are only a few of the companies that have admitted a breach. Most companies will never come clean due to fear of a falling stock price. Our largest commerce outlets are being targeted and penetrated, this is not random. I'm not advertising my services, I'm stating what I believe to be the inevitable incursion of our commerce, and it will be invisible to the naked eye. To steal massive amounts of data without detection takes months and even years to pull off so this is probably already happening as I type this. The biggest threat in our immediate future won't be terrorism, instead it will be a ghost traveling down a fiber optic cable into a data center or server room somewhere to steal data worth millions. Corporate espionage on the grandest of scales globally, possibly even being capable of bringing our financial system to it's knees.
