Huffington Magazine Issue 90 | Page 30

HUFFINGTON 03.02.14 JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES Voices ADAM LEVIN Why There Will Be Another Major Data Breach (and Another, and Another) T HE STORM OF CONSUMER-focused data breaches started off as intermittent downpours — Choicepoint, TJ Maxx, SONY, LinkedIn, Twitter, Adobe Systems — and is now a torrent: Target, Neiman Marcus, Kickstarter, White Lodging, the Sands Casino, and now everyone who’s attended or worked at the University of Maryland since 1998. In each case, hackers weren’t after the company’s intellectual property or trade secrets: they were after your information, because it’s the key to your money. ¶ In fact, though it’s been widely reported that the Target breach cost A customer signs a credit card slip at a Target store on Dec. 19, 2013, in Miami, Fla.