Panama Papers Breach Reveals Astonishingly Lax Network Security
My first reaction after reading accounts about the breach of a vast trove of financial and related information from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca was to channel John Le Carré and his famed Panamanian tailor/spy Harry Pendel.
However, the reality is much less interesting. The story is actually about a company with third-rate security that gets exploited by a routine hack.
While the details of the attack on Mossack Fonseca haven't been fully revealed, and while there's a great deal of hay being made by newspapers reporting details about prominent people who have offshore financial accounts, the really important story is about what was'’t in the breach. And no, I'm not talking about the puzzling lack of involvement by Americans. What's clearly lacking is even the most basic attempt at protecting the firm's client data.
