Regulators show their teeth in the fight against data theft

The fear of seeing your credit card details appear on the dark Web may soon be a thing of the past – if a regulatory crackdown worked.

The decision of the Federal Trade Commission to hit Equifax, the credit badessment agency, with a fine of nearly $ 800 million, and then a few days later, Facebook, social media group sentenced to the largest civil sanction of the watchdog's history, shows just how much the US regulator is currently dealing with data breaches. .

The $ 5 billion fine imposed on Facebook was more than 200 times the heaviest fine imposed on Google in 2012 for violating an FTC order and more than 20 times the heaviest penalty ever imposed for data security.

On a similar front, the British Information Commissioner imposed a potential fine of 187 million pounds on British Airways and the Marriott International hotel group was cut by 99 million pounds, both for failing to secure customer data.

These record fines reveal that watchdogs around the world are ready to exercise their powers to punish companies with lax cyber defenses.

"Regulators have generally been evolving at a slow pace, but now they're flexible with respect to data privacy," said Duncan Brown, security strategist at Emea at Forcepoint, a cybersecurity company.

And it's cautious. In this digital age, our data is everywhere and, more importantly, valuable. It governs most facets of modern life, from facilitating online bookings to dating to making recommendations on watching TV shows. But in the wrong hands, the consequences can be serious.

It is therefore not surprising that the volume and scale of cyber attacks has increased in recent years. Among the biggest attacks since 2010, some of the biggest violations have occurred in the last three years.

Yahoo remains the biggest cyber attack known to date. The Internet company said in 2016 that a violation in 2013 had affected 1 billion user accounts, and then increased that number by 2 billion nine months later. The news forced Verizon, who was buying Yahoo, to reduce the price of its $ 350 million offer.

But corporate responsibility is not limited to the threat of fines or financial losses. Companies now need to re-evaluate how they use your information to comply with data regulation, especially in Europe under the GDPR.

Introduced last year, the European Data Privacy Framework gives more rights to individuals as to how their data is used.

"Data theft is clearly an offense, but the new laws go much further. There are now real risks with regard to the processing of personal data, which could force many internet-related companies into bankruptcy, said Mr Brown.

As businesses become more security conscious and regulators expand their powers, it is up to us as users to catch up. A recent report from the European Commission revealed that only one in five people knew which public authority was responsible for protecting their data.