A proactive approach to cybercrime

IN recent weeks, supermarket chain SuperValu and insurance firm Axa experienced a cyber attack that led to 70,000 customers’ unencrypted credit card details — including CVV numbers — being stolen.

Loyaltybuild, the company responsible for both companies’ reward schemes and the source of the breach, said they had experienced a “sophisticated criminal attack”. If anything good can come of this incident, let it be a loud alarm bell for businesses — IT security is no longer an issue to be brushed under the rug.

The ubiquity of the internet and mobile devices has brought people from around the world closer than ever before. A once vast, seemingly endless globe has been reduced to a smartphone screen, where a message typed casually over a coffee is read on continents thousands of miles away before the sugar cubes have even dissolved.