Equifax Breach vs. Synthetic Data

With the recent Equifax breach coming back into the limelight due to the cancellation of the $125 check the FTC promised to those impacted by the breach, we want to take a look at possible prevention for the breach in the first place, or at least ways that the damage could have been minimized. 

Distilinfo Hitrust Advisory notes that "Production data use in the test environment cited as watchdog levies maximum possible Pre-GDPR fine. This breach could have been easily avoided through the use of Synthetic Data in Test Environments, a recognized best practice." In other words, had Equifax used synthetic data while testing their security, or at least utilized it in some way, shape or form, the company wouldn't have been hit as hard if at all and therefore not suffer as direly as it has. A full link to the Distilinfo's article can be found here.

So what does that tell us? What other companies must be hacked, breached, or mishandle their data to realize the leaking of private information is a real threat to both a company's self and their clients? Not only does client data get released, but internal threat detection and information protection are important to have as well. Synthetic data being generated in test environments to make sure at the very least no real data would be exposed in the case of a breach would have been a good start. With technology continuously evolving, hackers can do more and more and get what's supposedly private data with just a few button clicks. Real names, emails, addresses, and dates of birth became public information and five data protection principles were violated; all of which could have been avoided had test data been employed.