In Net Attacks, Defining The Right To Know

from the to-fess-up-or-not dept

The NY Times is taking on the issue of whether or not companies should publicly announce when they've been hacked or hit with a virus. This debate has gone on for ages, and companies still seem to feel that it's best to keep things quiet. For the most part, they're afraid of the bad publicity such announcements might give them. However, they're also concerned about other side effects. We recently had an article about companies that said they were too busy to help police and the FBI with investigations into computer security breaches. The NY Times article talks about a new study that suggests that companies that do report security breaches become less likely targets (while also getting more information out there to allow companies to build stronger security). However, many disagree with that, believing that public announcements only make them bigger targets.
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