If Google Can Get Hacked, What Chance Do the Rest of Us Have?

The news is out:  Google was hacked from China and lost intellectual property.  That’s right: Google, arguably the smartest company in the world with arguably the best security on the internet was hacked.  And this begs the question: what chance do the rest of us have?

I work with companies all the time as they are considering the move from local to cloud applications and security always comes up.  Although salesforce.com, my cloud platform of choice, has gone to ridiculous lengths to secure their systems and talks a great deal about it, someone always pipes up and says, “Well I can trust my systems area secure because I’ve secured them.”  As of today, all of those objections officially bunk and belong on the garbage heap.

Why?  Well let’s say you run a small data center and that you’ve spent a few thousand dollars trying to lock it down.  Have you tested it?  When did you test it last?  Are you testing it again tomorrow?  Do you honestly think you’ve secured your data center better than Google?  I doubt it.  Sooner or later, you’ll doubt it too — hopefully you’ll doubt it before you’re proven [catastrophically] wrong.  And if you’re in that 50% of data centers which are understaffed, you’re at even greater risk. It will never be easier for you to make the switch than it is today. What are you waiting for?

No, I don’t think you need to completely disconnect from the internet and I also don’t think you need to move absolutely everything to the cloud.  But if you haven’t started to take advantage of the work done others, building on the shoulders of Internet giants instead of from the ground up, you’re behind.  Your competitors are out innovating you, you’re spending too much money and sooner or later you’ll face a material loss.

What are you waiting for? It will never be easier or less expensive than it is today.

And now, for your enjoyment and to lighten the mood, here is a video of a little girl talking about kittens.