It is well understood and accepted today, that the most important commodity in existence is DATA. Data is needed for not only for economic progress, social cohesion, cultural revolution and political advancement but for a number of other utilities. So it can be easily inferred that data is required for all sorts of positive developmental activities. In a similar but disturbing fashion data is the most important ingredient required by cyber criminals to put their evil designs into practice.
Big data is one of the key words in use in today’s digital era. Just like in the mid 19th century the Gold Rush was on in the United States – so too in today’s times there is a new age Gold Rush in operation. Huge companies like IBM, Oracle, SAS, Microsoft, Hewitt Packard & Dell are aggressively organizing to maximize their profits from this big data phenomenon. The World Economic orum has gone to extent to say that data and especially big data is “the new oil”. And if data is the new oil then those in possession of the largest chunk will also yield enormous power and influence over the world and its affairs.
People like John D. Rockefeller and J. Paul Getty, the first oil barons – ruled their era. So too will those who possess the largest amounts of data rule today’s world. This has been amply demonstrated by people like Mark Zukerberg and Eric Schmidt. Companies like Google, Facebook and Acxiom are creating the largest data sets about human behavior ever accumulated in history and thus can manipulate this information for their own benefit – which may be profit, surveillance or even medical research – depending upon their motive.
Data is being constantly generated by everything around us. Every digital process – be it phone calls, social media interaction, lab test, CCTV operation, car engine, GPS device functioning, debit card transaction, ATM functioning, power supply, DTH signaling and what have you – all produces a stream of endless data. Smart phones are converting human beings into human sensors producing huge amounts of data 24X7. So much so that in the year 2014 each and every minute of the day we:
• Sent 204,166,667 e-mail messages
• Searched Google 2 million times
• Shared 684,000 pieces of content on Facebook
• Sent out 100,000 tweets on Twitter
• Downloaded 47,000 Apps from the Apple Store
• Uploaded 48 hours of new video on You Tube
• Posted 36,000 new photographs on Instagram
• Texted 34 million messages on WhatsApp
This clearly shows how humans have been transformed into data using and data generating modules – to say the least. In such a scenario if humans across the globe have to be safe in their virtual world activities, then their data (sometimes generated inadvertently) has to be kept secure. It has to be prevented from falling into the wrong hands – which can lead to great loss to the concerned individual. Incidents like the leakage on 1 Crore consumer details from private sector banks of India and the theft of 100 million credit card details from the records of the retail giant Target in the USA – has to be curbed and curbed soon. Otherwise this new age oil will not fuel success in the world but disaster.
Individual devices are definitely at risk through targeted malware disseminations but it is the huge data storage stations that are at a greater risk. There was a famous American bank robber in the 1920’s by the name of Willie Sutton. He robbed almost US$ 2 million in a crime career which spanned many decades. When he was nabbed by the FBI he was asked by a reporter – “Hey Willie, why do you rob banks”? He gave a very simple answer – “because that is where the money is”! Willie could have robbed US$ 1 from 2 million people and would have ended up still with US$ 2 million but it is much easier, logical and time effective to rob few large banks which are actually large currency aggregators and end up with the same amount of cash. Thus it should be no surprise that the cyber thugs and hackers go after large data aggregators like Target, ICICI bank, Sony and HDFC bank – when the rewards are so high and the risks so low! In today’s world data is where the money is. Thus author Marc Goodman has famously said – “the more data you produce and store, the more organized cyber crime is happy to consume”.
Hence the need of the hour is that big data is definitely big bucks to many influential conglomerates of today’s world but security of this data should also be taken as seriously. The world players’ capacity to store more and more data of humanity is increasing exponentially and the cost of such storage is also coming down in a similar exponential spiral – but the effort at securing this data is not keeping pace with the above two abilities. This should be the area of prime concern in the times to come both for Governments as well as for the Corporates. Otherwise they would be doing great disservice to their citizens and consumers respectively.
