Big updates coming on your software over the Optus data breach
Australia has had the most significant data breach ever, affecting over nine million people in its history. What is clear is that the government intends to act on it, and the public wants them to. So our cybersecurity rules will go up, including enforcement and fines in the wake of a breach. We are talking here of a monumental shift in privacy legislation. We will probably get General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) next year. So as the information comes forward, we also intend to change our POS software.
Let me clarify the problem now your customers' data legally doesn't belong to you. If you abuse it, you could be in trouble.
If your customer list goes missing, you could be in trouble. So do not believe this is only for big business; it will affect anyone who stores people's data.
The immediate problem is that many of our clients do not even have a clear picture of what data they actually have. There is so much there, and so many people have worked on it, so who knows what is there?
Although we cannot say yet what will be implemented. Based on overseas privacy issues, the questions that our clients need to investigate to protect themselves now:
-Why do we need the data that we have?
-What are we doing to make it secure?
-Where is it stored?
-How long will we hold the data? This is tough as different organisations have different demands. Some, like courts, want you to keep the information forever
An immediate action you need to take now is that every user of your POS System must use a password to get into your system. If you have not yet implemented passwords, do so now! If these passwords are a year old, change them.
