Print Article

digital securitySecurity used to be relatively simple— a lock and a key. Security of the 21st century is almost entirely digital, and anything but simple. The last couple years have been a frightening time for people who value privacy, and 2014 was no different with attacks on big names like eBay, Michaels, Neiman Marcus, Instagram, and Netflix. Around 5 million credit cards were compromised in 2014 in addition to 500 million online accounts. We shuddered at the word Heartbleed, but in the end most of us still use the same passwords over and over and over again.
Secure Networkers places utmost importance on security and privacy. While we highly encourage you to change your passwords and change them often, today we want to look at new trends in digital security that might be promising for the future of information.  Most notably, the future belongs to those who collaborate. There are current attempts to create an encrypted email system by Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, but the Facebook TODO project seems to be the most promising new initiative. TODO stands for “Talk Openly, Develop Openly,” and promotes a completely untraditional and slightly controversial strategy—namely joining forces and pooling resources and brainpower to develop safer open-source projects. More heads are better than one and more effective when it comes to identifying bugs and security breaches and finding issues before they become problems.

The TODO project is innovative, but concerns those who are set in the ways of the past and feel more comfortable competing with industry peers rather than cooperating with them. One thing is certain, digital security needs a few upgrades. In the meantime, Secure Networkers promises you that we go above and beyond to protect privacy, but it never hurts to change that email password once in a blue moon! Change it. Please.