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Monday, March 19, 2018

You Have To Wonder

Over the weekend, I discovered that someone had stolen my credit card number and run up about $4000 in fraudulent charges.  This is not the first time my card number has been misused, so I knew the drill; I called my credit card company and reported the fraud.  The took the info and in about five minutes the charges were removed.  I'm not sure who is out the $4000.  The bulk of the charges were for Venmo for which the thief created a fraudulent account.  Most of the rest were for supposed restaurant deliveries through Square/Caviar in California.  I have to wonder how these services and the bank itself did not pick up the fraud.  After all, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that I wasn't getting food delivered to Connecticut from a restaurant in San Francisco.  Still, someone gets hit with that loss.  For the bank, I guess it is just another cost of doing business.

The bigger point, however, is what this says about cyber security in general.  Our whole country depends on cyber transactions.  If a thief can steal 4000 dollars so easily, couldn't a foreign country shut down critical systems or otherwise create chaos just as easily?  Have we put ourselves and our society at risk of disaster?  It's a tough question, but it is one which we need to ponder ever more intensively.  It's a hell of a lot more important than Stormy Daniels or the other craziness of the moment, but not for the media.

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