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The Snowden Effect on Enterprise Security in 2014

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Mastufa
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“Given that governments are actively snooping on their citizens, service providers are bound to change their stance in order to retain their customer base”

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With the recent revelations by Edward Snowden about the espionage capabilities and ability of NSA and GCHQ, the whole world has been taken by surprise. Even though everyone was suspicious about the capabilities of NSA and GCHQ in the past, however, the Snowden effect has changed the entire perspective of IT security.



Pre-Snowden Era


IT security was replete with the need for encryption, urging usage of stronger password, two factor authentications. Concentration of IT Security was predominantly on securing the communications between the user and the server while some solutions provided encryption for user-data. However numerous web-based services were providing communication based security through SSL. The impression was that if the communication between the user and the server is encrypted then nothing can go wrong. However, a string of SQLi (SQL Injection) based attacks on some large corporations revealed that having encrypted communications is of no use unless and until the user data and other private information is encrypted during transition and storage by the very organization which provide Internet based services. Malwares and Trojans targeted general users either to steal personal information, especially banking details or the usernames, passwords and other identity related information which would assist the bad guys to steal your financial details and then wipe out your bank accounts.

Corporate espionage hinged around the web of conspiracy theories as there had never been a direct evidence linking the corporate world with the Foreign Governments,..

Cyber-Criminals have been for ages targeting either individuals or large corporations and have been stealing documents, personal details, etc and this has thrown open an entire underground eco-system which thrives on stolen data.  Governments are more or less not interested in accessing your bank-accounts, they have their own methods to access your financial records and your telephone records. The only thing not accessible are your browsing history, chat history, file contents, location history and passwords. 



Our past defines our future

Snowden’s revelation, are an eye-opener about the days to come, when organizations and individuals likewise would never want to compromise their privacy and disclosure of sensitive data to third parties without their consent. Due to legal hurdles/sanctions, organizations in the past had/have been assisting Law Enforcement to provide access to the inboxes, chat messages, etc of select users, however, this is all about to change. Considering the fact that many governments are actively snooping on their citizens, services and service providers are bound to change their stance in order to retain their customer base. However, technology has never been destructive or disruptive; the way it is used defines the final outcome. 

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