Security
We all care about the security of our information,
whether it’s simply our name, email address or the use of your likeness, we
value the protection of it. Have you ever had your bank account frozen because
of fraud; your credit card number stolen; or perhaps had your email account
hacked? Was your answer yes to any of the preceding questions? Well, so was
mine. As recently as a few days ago I had my information compromised, someone
hacked into my email account! So how do companies ensure the protection of our
personal information as well as our more critical information – banking, credit
card and financial information?
Well, here comes big data analytics to the rescue.
As you now know from our previous post, big data analytics involves the
gathering, processing and storage of large volumes of information for
organizations. That information when analyzed becomes useful in the tracking of
consumer behaviors and organizational issues. Industries have now taken notice
that this information can not only be useful in marketing and business
development, but also in providing consumer satisfaction – with regards to security. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6682971&isnumber=6682920
In November of 2013 the biggest retail hack in the history of the United States occurred when Target’s security operations center failed to react to alarms from FireEye – its million dollar security firm. Millions of customer’s personal information such as names, addresses, email accounts and credit/debit card information was compromised! Could this have been avoided? The answer is an astounding “YES”. As consumers we later learn that Michael’s and Neiman Marcus had also been hacked. Target had the software in place but failed to analyze the information properly and react accordingly. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/14/business/target-missed-signs-of-a-data-breach.html
Now, let’s look at this from a big data analyst
perspective. You had the tools in place to detect the fraud but couldn’t
analyze it. So, wouldn’t you agree as a consumer and an analyst, that if this
information had been shared within a large volume capacity among other
retailers within the industry and processed against other known information,
that the hack may have been fought off before any harm had occurred? – Maybe
yes, maybe no, but either way, something more has to be done to protect
consumers from such malicious attacks against our personal information!
Big data analytics for security is the perfect
answer. It is now developing tools to filter out noisy insignificant data at
greater speeds and more efficiently. In the past such tools have been too
expensive for industries as a whole to develop and share, but with improved
technology comes lower cost and this is the case with big data analytics for
security. Big data analytics can process, store and display this information in
such a manner that interpretation of the information becomes less liking to
fail due to human interpretation of the information.
Privacy
Although big data analytics maybe the answer for
industries in protecting us as consumers from fraud and theft, it may also pose
serious problems in regards to privacy for consumers. Because so much of our
information is already stored with the individualized retailers and entities,
we have to ask ourselves, does the sharing across organization lines really
matter? It’s an individualized answer and it’s yours.
Please post your comments and personal experiences
of fraud, theft and views of big data analytics in the realm of security and
privacy to this post.
In the section 'Privacy', I was not clear on what was meant by sharing across organization lines, which I think of as inside one company. This has always been done and has proven to be an effective way to prevent aggravating customers by pestering them repeatedly. Now, if you really mean across company lines (like Sears sharing tool customers with Lowe's) that could be problematic. Not all companies are as vigilant at protecting customer information (as noted in your Target example).
ReplyDeleteIn addition, privacy hardly in our control any longer. Unless we remove our cyber DNA from the internet (which likely proves to be impossible), some information, regardless of how useful, is out there to be used by whomever finds a need for it.
Whether the private information is being exchanged over inter-organizational lines or within organizational lines, I find both extremely problematic. There are many companies that own other companies and will be perfectly willing to share the private information of individual customers so that both will prosper. Take Disney for example. Disney has its own database of personal information on all its customers and potential customers. But, Disney also has an invested interest in keeping its children companies at a high functionality as well. Disney owns ESPN and ABC, do you think Disney is going to share its customer information with ESPN and ABC? Of course they will and this is problematic for us as the individual. Before we know it, two or three or tens of companies have all of our information that we gave out one time to one company hoping that they would keep that private.
ReplyDeletecompanies do hold privacy as something that is extremely important but even the most secure systems my be entered. i have bank of america and about a year ago when i was attempting to pay bills i started getting a notice that my card was being declined so i called my bank and found out that my card informations was used at a flower shop in NY for almost $700. the first thing i had to do was to verify who i was was multiple ways, after that my money was returned and they were going after the fraud by the end of the call. the ordeal with my card made me trust my bank more because of how fast they handled the situation.
ReplyDelete