If you have yet to figure out that your Internet activity and emails are fair game, you had better learn quickly.
Another week, another trove of secret data released to the masses.
Less than a year ago, we watched as Sony Pictures fell victim to a bizarre retaliatory hack that unleashed the secret rants of studio executives. Most of us enjoyed the commotion with a bucket of popcorn in our laps because didn't we already want to believe that A-listers behaved like petulant children? The email excerpts about so-and-so's demands just confirmed these notions.
A high-profile political candidate has been under scrutiny for using a private email server to send potentially sensitive work emails. It has become such a big issue that the scandal even has its own, standalone Wikipedia entry.[1]
Now, everyone's watching the mother lode dump from the adult infidelity website Ashley Madison. The related ramifications of this hack will affect public and private sectors and of course, personal lives.
The public consensus may be that if you sign up for such a website, then welcome to the land of consequences. There's a bigger picture problem that all of us should be considering, especially as advisors whose businesses are built on trust.
Nothing is safe.
Specifically, nothing that we access electronically is safe. Many people are rightly concerned about identity theft but the real threat is the information that people disclose almost willingly.
