Manufacturers urged to encrypt customer data as Geeks.com hacked
Organisations – even those that believe they have done everything they can to secure their systems – are being warned to encrypt their customer data.
The alert follows the revelation that Geeks.com – a website that displays a banner from McAfee’s ScanAlert certifying that it is hacker safe – has been hacked.
Says Calum Macleod, European director for digital vaulting and data encryption specialist Cyber-Ark: “Geeks.com has admitted that it discovered that its customer information – including customer credit card data, phone numbers and email addresses – may have been compromised.
“Quite apart from the fact that a supposedly secure Web site – and one that has been certified as such – has been hacked, it highlights the need for all commercial organisations to encrypt their customer data, if they are not to lose face, or even face lawsuits.”
As Macleod says: “If it can happen to someone as tech-savvy as Geeks.com, it can happen to any company.”
