“Over a billion email accounts stolen.” The phrase sounds somewhat like the old McDonald’s ads about the number of burgers sold. For now, though, the cyber crooks are not advertising their numbers. Other sources (such as Krebs on Security), however, are revealing the numbers, and they are staggering. They also reveal a modern oxymoron: “Secure web site.”
Not surprisingly, and far too late, corporate directors are starting to be sued and lawyers are writing about Caremark duties related to cyber security. Soon we will see arguments that the risks and harms were not foreseeable until now. But that argument should fail since cyber security has been much discussed for many years, which is easy to see by looking at a decade of past blog posts and articles by Mr. Krebs, or the reality that the annual Black Hat security conference dates back to 1997.