The Impact of Hackers and the Role of Consumers

With the growth of the internet, users are interconnected more than ever. Through the internet alone, one can find almost any information about anyone. Even private information that users consider protected can be at risk of being hacked at any point. According to Revision Legal, 115 large-scale cyber attacks took place in the month of January 2018 alone. While most hacking attempts target larger corporations, average users can easily be affected regardless.

On January 8th 2018, a group of hackers hacked into the record systems of Health South-East RHF in Norway. 2.9 million patients had their medical records compromised within minutes. This cyber attack affected more than half of Norway's  5.2 million inhabitants. Even though this hacking was the result of poor security systems, many innocent citizens were impacted.

As a corporation, it is its responsibility to protect the private information of users that have entrusted them with the corporation. In the case of Health South-East RHF, corporate managers put little effort in doing so. As the internet develops over time, more hacking methods will be introduced. Therefore, it is the duty of corporations to update their systems regularly and take preventative measures. For consumers, they should be careful in entrusting too much information with these corporations.

REFERENCES

https://revisionlegal.com/data-breach/2018-statistics/

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hacker-might-have-stolen-the-healthcare-data-for-half-of-norways-population/