Libby Powers of Anderson Technologies was taken aback recently when she spoke to someone so cavalier about the data of his clients and partners. Are you treating your business data as if losing it is no big deal?
Transcript
Libby Powers: Hi there, Libby Powers with Anderson Technologies. I wanted to share with you all a conversation I had with a potential client last week. We lead with security here at Anderson Technologies. Cybersecurity is the most important thing for us, and if our clients were to have a data breach or something like that, we take that extremely seriously.
The conversation went, you know, they don’t really have a lot of data that they store for their clients, they have their manufacturing company, they ship, they sell their product, both through a distribution center and also directly. They have information like credit card numbers, names, email addresses and social security numbers. And I said, ‘Well, is that information important to you? How would your clients feel if you had to tell them that you were breached, and because of that breach, their social security numbers or their credit card information got out onto the dark web?’
And he said to me, ‘You know, I don’t really think it’s a big deal. Because these days, we know everybody’s information is getting stolen and sold. So for me to have to tell my clients that their information was breached or sold, I don’t necessarily think it would be a big deal.’ And I was actually—I couldn’t believe he was saying this. Just me personally, if I was doing business with my bank, or if I was doing business with the hair salon that I go to, or my kids’ school, or any other of these things that we do on a daily basis, and one of them came to me and said, ‘Hey, you know, your data was stolen, but it’s probably not a big deal because it’s already out there on the internet,’ I would 100% cut ties with that company and run the other way.
For anybody to have that flippant of an attitude towards personal data and their clients’ personal data, I think is extremely irresponsible and reckless. And so I just wanted to put that out there. Make sure you’re doing business with people who believe that your information is important. Hopefully people [who] are doing business with you also understand the importance that you take to protect their data and their privacy. Have a great day, and if you have any questions reach out to us here at Anderson Technologies. Thanks so much.
