So, I just got a letter from an account that I no longer use that, you guessed it, he was hacked and, while client files were not impacted, his email held "expired" driver license, social security numbers and broker account numbers - presumably retained for over a decade in his email account.

The remedy yo those clients (in my case, former clients) - a one year subscription to a credit-watch application.

We just read in parallel posts about "agents" Which control your favorite AI and accomplish all sorts of tasks. The problem is, like many human employees, they sometimes act weirdly and can find new and exciting ways to put your data or money at risk.

In the first case, it was pure carelessness toward social engineering (he clicked on a "document" sent by his attorney), but all too many times similar issues are caused by taking advantage of chinks in network security. These chinks are even more frequently found in objects loosely associated with the "Internet Of Things" where the primary R&D budget is devoted to the hardware/application design, rather than continuing to upgrade the device's network security.

Until the consequential costs of security breaches are the responsibility of those whose negligence or foolishness didn't protect their client's data, this will be an accelerating problem.

Jeff