Isn’t it time we fought digital fire with digital fire, even if it costs the world a lot of money to beat these threats to our income and lives?

Cyber criminals have claimed that they have sensitive, personal data potentially about 5.7 million customers who have flown with Qantas! And if the airline’s data keeper doesn’t cough up with their ransom demands, the information will be released to all the other scumbag operators on the cursed Internet!

According to the AFR, the company hacked is the mega-data manager Salesforce, so 39 big companies (including names such as Toyota, Google AdSense, Cisco, Chanel, IKEA, McDonald’s, KFC, Marriott, Disney and Qantas) have reportedly lost their data about us to these digital dragoons.

The scoundrels in question are an international cybercriminal group called Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters that has threatened to release the data onto the so-called dark web (where there are leak websites), if Salesforce doesn’t contact them by Friday and agree to pay the ransom.

Unsurprisingly, while Salesforce has refused to pay up or negotiate, this raises questions that the politicians and governments of the world have to start seriously addressing. But it’s also us as consumers, as big companies continuously seek data from us via website requests to accept cookies, to pay for stuff and what about the new practice of asking for an email address to receive a receipt!

And by God most of us give our email or phone number over without even thinking. We’ll end up on some sneak’s database and be targeted to make money. While that’s bad enough, when these big organisations like Salesforce and their big customer companies can’t protect that data, consumers might need to start saying “no” to data requests. However, that’s easier said than done.

This is where politicians and governments need to get serious about these economic threats via data mishandling, if they really care about who voted for them.

This is what the AFR revealed about what the hackers have said: “If Salesforce does not engage with us to resolve this, we will completely target each and every individual customer of theirs listed below, failure to comply will result in massive consequences. We will f---ing leak your data and harass the shit out of you if you don’t comply with us. Don’t be the next headline”.

At this stage, while it’s unclear if Qantas data has been accessed and will be misused, what’s worrying are the claims that hackers are using AI voice theft to deceive key people in the corporate world.

The Daily Telegraph says, “the data leak site claimed to have 153 gigabytes worth of Qantas data in its possession, representing the personal details of 5.7 million customers stolen from the airline’s Manila call centre…”.

The Tele’s Robyn Ironside reports that “the data stolen from Qantas’ customer database includes names, phone numbers, email addresses and postal addresses, dates of birth, meal preferences and frequent flyer numbers”.

As I’ve said, all this raises questions that our leaders globally need to address and here they are:

1. What is being done to put these cyber criminals out of business?
2. Why aren’t giant data managers Salesforce forced to be better at protecting the data they help companies sneakily get from us?
3. Why aren’t they specifically forced to show how safely they keep our data, and if they fail, they should be massively fined to compensate those who lose money because of their errors?
4. Manila in the Philippines has cheap labour and the business world is using it, but are they at the standards of the level expected in a first world operation such as Salesforce?
5. What are the likes of the FBI, CIA and ASIO doing to stop these cybercriminals?
6. And isn’t it time that the creation of websites and other social media platforms that are vehicles for serious crimes (including theft and embezzlement of innocent consumers and business owners) needs more government resources thrown at solving this problem?

Given what I’ve seen over the past 10 years, I suspect politicians and governments haven’t got the guts or brains to really attack this problem. We need someone really brainy and seriously committed to winning like Elon Musk or other unique entrepreneurs to be charged with the job to KO these cyber criminals.

These guys are data geniuses and it’s time we fought digital fire with digital fire, even if it costs the world a lot of money to beat these threats to our income and lives.

While the Internet has brought great pluses, the negatives have been ignored by politicians, who really are serious ‘plonkers’, which makes it easy for smart devious digital masterminds to exploit us all!