{"id":73846,"date":"2015-02-17T20:44:14","date_gmt":"2015-02-18T01:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbach.net\/blog\/index.php\/"},"modified":"2022-10-16T15:53:48","modified_gmt":"2022-10-16T19:53:48","slug":"scary-pii-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/scary-pii-numbers\/","title":{"rendered":"Scary PII Numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Scary<\/a>As you may have heard by now, the second-largest health insurer Anthem<\/a><\/strong> gave away at least 80 million of their customers’ PII records<\/strong> to hackers. I say at least because these always grow as the experts dig through the wreckage. The WSJ<\/a><\/em> reports<\/a> the Indianapolis<\/a>-based insured did not encrypt this data<\/strong> (I covered encryption here<\/a> and here<\/a><\/em>). That means customers’ social security numbers, phone numbers, and other PII<\/strong> were easy targets for Chinese hackers<\/strong> according<\/a> to CNBC<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"did<\/a><\/p>\n

Anthem is just the latest. There are even larger targets<\/strong> out there. The Business Insider<\/a><\/em> published<\/a> some pretty scary numbers. BI<\/em> reports that somehow the biggest tech companies have done a great job at convincing people that their services for sending\/receiving payments and purchasing goods are trustworthy and worthwhile. The article estimates that Apple<\/strong> has somewhere around a billion iTunes<\/a> accounts<\/strong> (with plenty of PII and credit cards) on file.<\/p>\n

This chart from BI Intelligence<\/em>,\u00a0Apple<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>(AAPL<\/a>) is nearing a billion iTunes accounts on file, and that number is likely to surge immensely. Customers in China<\/a> can now link their UnionPay<\/a> payment cards to their Apple IDs:<\/strong> For context, UnionPay is the largest card network in the world with more cards in circulation than Visa<\/a> and MasterCard<\/a> combined.<\/p>\n

Amazon<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>(AMZN<\/a>)\u00a0has approx. 300 million payment<\/strong> cards<\/strong> on file while PayPal has around 200 million payment cards<\/strong> on record.<\/p>\n

\"Apple,<\/a><\/p>\n

A second BI<\/em> article<\/a> indicates that based on leaked Uber<\/strong> data<\/a> charted analyzed by BI Intelligence<\/a>, the ride-sharing firm has well over 12 million payment cards<\/strong> on file. Their closest competitor Hailo<\/a> has 4.4 million payment cards on file.<\/p>\n

\"Ride-Sharing<\/a><\/p>\n

rb-<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

You have been warned. The next mega data breach<\/strong> could come from a tech firm like Apple or Amazon.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Data<\/a>The WSJ article argues that companies can use many techniques to secure their data, but those things slow companies down, sometimes to a degree they find unacceptable. <\/em><\/p>\n

I think most victims of identity theft or credit fraud find that unacceptable.<\/em><\/p>\n

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