The Risk Factor

eWeek posted an on-line slide show listing the "Most Disastrous Data Breaches" since February 2005. They list 17 of them: 5 caused by outside hacking, 1 by insider theft, 5 by inadvertent posting of information, 5 by devices (laptop, memory stick) being stolen, and 1 caused by data being lost.

One of the seventeen listed was the discount retailer TJX. The company announced last week that the cost of its data breach last year that affected 45.8 million of its customers was likely to exceed $150 million, although given its previous estimates this is probably an underestimate of at least 100% or more. To quote TJX's press release:

In the second quarter of fiscal 2008, the Company recorded an after-tax cash charge of approximately $118 million, or $.25 per share, with respect to the previously announced computer intrusion(s). This charge includes $11 million (after tax), or $.02 per share, for costs incurred during the quarter, as well as a reserve of $107 million (after tax), or $.23 per share, for the Company's exposure to potential losses. This reserve reflects the Company’s estimation of probable losses, in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, based on the information available to the Company as of August 14, 2007, and includes an estimation of total, potential cash liabilities from pending litigation, proceedings, investigations and other claims, as well as legal and other costs and expenses, arising from the intrusion(s). In addition, TJX expects to incur future non-cash charges of approximately $21 million (after tax), or $.05 per share, that are not included in this reserve and could be recorded in fiscal year 2009. Together, these cash and non-cash charges represent the Company’s best estimate of the total losses the Company expects to incur as a result of the computer intrusion(s).

And people still argue that organizational IT security rules are meant to be broken.

This coming Thursday, the 4th of October, will be the 50th anniversary of the launching of Prosteishiy Sputnik (or the Simplest Satellite) and the beginnings of the Space Age and Space Race. Only now is the fascinating back story detailing the events leading up to the launch coming out in the open.

For instance, the public was told that the object they were seeing as it twinkled across the night sky was Sputnik itself. However, the satellite weighing in at 184 pounds was too small to be seen with the naked eye. What people actually were looking at was the second stage of the booster rocket used to lift Sputnik into orbit. Interestingly, the Soviet leadership at the time did not at first realize the magnitude of their achievement until the Western governments and press made a big deal out of it.

Yesterday, Fairchild Semiconductor celebrated its 50th anniversary as well. Founded by Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce, C. Sheldon Roberts, Victor Grinich, Eugene Kleiner, Jean Hoerni and Julius Blank, and Jay Last with $3,500 of their own money, the company helped make Silicon Valley. Fairchild perfected the capability to mass produce transistors from a single wafer, whereas up to this point only one transistor could be produced per wafer. The company also created the monolithic integrated circuit and the planar transistor, which is still the the primary method for producing transistors today.

Moore and Noyce left 11 years later to start another company in the Valley, something called Intel.