Sony
This is getting ridiculous. It's been more than two years since President Obama came into the White House on a platform that included spending perhaps $50 billion to shore up the nation's cyberdefenses. I don't know how much of that has actually been spent. But I have to tell you, folks, I'm not seeing the results.
What I do see is a tremendous impact on our companies. Sony's putting its damage at $170 million. EMC's going to have to take a charge for the 40 million SecurID tokens it will need to replace. Citi's reissuing 200,000 credit cards. (Google's probably safe, as it wasn't technically "hacked;" rather, some of its customers were individually "phished.") But now the hackers are progressing, attacking our government websites with impunity.
What's to be done? I have to go with Saturday Night Live's "Oscar Rogers" on this one: Fix it.
How? I've got a few ideas, but they're probably too extreme. Fortunately, I suspect a lot of you more technically-inclined folks have better ideas. What's the best, most cost-effective way to end the plague of hacking -- and which companies are best-positioned to implement it? Tell us below.