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  5. Black Hat Will Once Again Show Our Security Weaknesses: Page 2 of 2
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Black Hat Will Once Again Show Our Security Weaknesses: Page 2 of 2

The most important thing about Black Hat is the reality check it provides on just how insecure everything really is, from computers to networks to mobile devices to industrial and other systems that are now increasingly connected and exposed. And this week’s Black Hat will be no exception, as several scheduled demos will display just how scary some of these security holes can be.
Jim Rapoza
August 01, 2011

And the problem with poor security systems is that there is often no penalty for having bad security.

A bill currently being pushed through Congress, the ISP Data Retention Bill, will force ISPs to keep their customer surfing data--meaning every site you visited along with all of your account information--for a full year. But to make things a little easier for those ISPs, they have been given blanket immunity if they have a data breach and all of this information is stolen.

So not only will law enforcement be able to access private information without a warrant, anyone who breaks into the ISP will also be able to. And with no penalty for these data breaches, why should ISPs work hard to secure this data they are being forced to keep?

As Black Hat regularly shows, this type of data is often easy for bad guys to get a hold of. Hopefully, the show will once again provide a reminder of the extent to which our systems and data are at risk and why everyone should work hard to design systems from the get-go with security in mind.

Who am I kidding? The pressure will remain for cool features that look good in ads. And politicians won’t care if their policies put our personal information at risk as long as they can campaign that they were tough on crime.

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