Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer organization, agrees with Varney that many companies see the losses associated with security breaches as the cost of doing business. But they're also concerned about their image.
"Suffering a security breach does give a company a public relations black eye," she says. "They could lose customers, they could certainly lose trust and it might take them a while to regain the customers they lost and regain a good reputation."
That acts as a catalyst to improve security practices, Givens says. Companies typically now pay for a year's worth of credit monitoring for victims, which combined with the expense of notifying them, could cost several million dollars. "The big company can laugh it off ... but a smaller company will feel the pinch."
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse estimates that nearly 90 million records containing sensitive personal information have been involved in security breaches, starting with ChoicePoint. That incident led 30 states to follow California's lead and pass a law that requires consumers to be notified of a breach in the security of computerized personal information.
There is no such federal law, though a pair of bills are under review in Congress.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
