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| My Inbox within Mozilla Thunderbird detailing Dr. Means reply to my digitally signed email |
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| Another view of my Inbox within Mozilla Thunderbird specifying Dr. Means reply to my encrypted email |
After completing the Secure Email Project, I am convinced that more people (including myself) need to take greater precautions with securing data sent across the Internet. This particular project demonstrated one simple way to protect critical information sent via email to another recipient. In fact, using the secure email certificate for this project inspired me to use greater caution with my email communications and to avoid sending any type of confidential information across the Internet without first properly encrypting the message. With cybercrimes, such as information theft, on the rise across the United States, individuals and businesses must make protecting personal and confidential information the highest of priorities.
Epsilon Fears Loss of Business
Following one of the largest security breaches in U.S. history, the marketing services firm Epsilon Interactive is afraid of potentially losing valued clients. On March 30, 2011, hackers infiltrated the company's computer database, acquiring the names and email addresses of customers to some of the largest U.S. firms, including Verizon, Citibank, and JPMorgan Chase. Alliance Data, Epsilon's parent company, has apologized for the data breach affecting millions of their global clients' customers' personal information. As one of the largest data-marketing firms in the United States, Alliance Data worries the security breach may affect the firm's future business. However, Alliance Data said the breach would have a minimal effect on the company's bottom line. On the other hand, security experts believe that the personal information obtained will increase the success rate for phishing and spam attacks by directly targeting the affected customers. As a result, customers have received emails from those firms compromised by the breach, warning against the increased possibility of phishing messages or spam. Meanwhile, the list of compromised firms continues to increase, with now more than 100 companies confirmed.
Works Cited
Embedded Links (in order of appearance):
http://www.cio.com/article/679180/Epsilon_Worries_it_May_Lose_Business_After_Major_Data_Breach?taxonomyId=3089
http://www.databreaches.net/?p=17374
*All screen shots are original work.
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