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>Although the trend of many data breaches certainly wouldn't decline in that case.

Exactly. Successful and profitable are not mutually exclusive with "secure" or "well-architected". At least until those last two come to bite you later and start eating into your profits.



Sony is a great example of this.


Did the PR hit actually translate into a monetary hit and eat into their profits?


I don't know about the cost of the negative PR, but the compromise itself cost them $15 million in real costs (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-c...) and potentially much more (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/09/us-sony-cybersecur...) once you count the downtime involved and potential lawsuits, settlements, and other fallout over the breach of information. IIRC there were some embarrassing emails released regarding some Hollywood big-wigs, for example.

It should be a huge cautionary tale for any big organization that doesn't have good internal security, but unfortunately this isn't the first such case in history, and it almost certainly won't be the last.

But that doesn't mean there aren't other smart businesses out there.


$15M sounds like a rounding error for Sony. It sounds like a rounding error as well when compared to the cost of brand-name IT solutions when deployed in a company of Sony's size.




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