As I understand it, the press has not come out one way or the other to say whether the electronic health records have also been compromised.  Putting health records on computers was one of the things Obama touted as a major improvement to come from Obamacare.  Yet all I see is the potential for the kind of extortion recently highlighted in the series of stories about "ransomware".  That's where someone gets a bug on your computer, one that denies you access to your files and will turn the computer into a briok in a certain amount of time.  The demand is that you pay them a couple hundred bucks in Bitcoin and they'll give you the key to stop the countdown.  Suppose, for a moment that a couple years ago you were successfully treated for, say, a social disease.  Or lice.  Or something you don't want broadcast to the world.  Imagine the blackmail potential in an electronic health record - one that doesn't ever go away - in the hands of extortion-minded folks.

I'm convinced that the only way companies that aggregate our data will get their thumbs out of their axes and start actually protecting it, is if the presidents of those companies and the members of their boards are held personally liable.  Right now, the people running companies have absolutely no incentive to actually protect the data, and can finesse the balance sheets and payouts, if any, for breaches such that it costs their companies nothing.  Put a CEO in FCI Florence and watch that change.

That would seem to be especially vulnerable to hacking.

I also wonder whether the loss of paper money and real coins would simply enable the government to track our every move even more easily.

No cash transactions would be a tax collector's dream.

And I wonder how safe is Paypal. They do recognize if you are using your own computer - so for the moment I feel safe...
But am I really?

How are hackers going to sift through 80 million people's personal data to make use of it? Are they going to sell it off in batches? Are there enough buyers? What are the odds my data or your data will find its way to someone who tries to fraudulently use it? 1 in a million or more or less?

And then of course, who's and putting all their trust in and watching the watchers?

Full disclosure: For those that don't already know, I work for {insert name here}

On the general topic of hacking, I would say it has less to do with the tools in place to prevent hack - there's only so much a router, firewall rules or software like McAfee can do. More important is the tenacity of the hacker(s).  I read a book a number of years ago, Hacking Exposed.  Most hacks are brute force ones (software that tries user logons/pwds repetetively) or brought about by confidence scams/phishing.  There is also the ubiquitous embedded link in email which runs a program when clicked. I for one would loke to see tougher penalties for those that inflict the damage.