Data theft at the Tax Authority: A hard disk stolen from the Amsterdam Tax Building | The interior

It is a hard drive of a computer under which physical documents, such as tax returns, objections and exemption requests, have been scanned. Despite the theft from the Herikerbergweg tax office in Zuidoost, the data has yet to appear on the street. Criminals will first have to bypass disk security.

Network error

Organizations not only store their data on private network servers, but are increasingly making physical copies. During a major network outage, says internet expert Danny Mikic, you can keep working. “But then it is important that you also store this disk properly.”

In 2019, something similar happened at insurance company Allianz. Then a physical disk containing the data of nearly 2.3 million customers was stolen. Earlier this week, there was a major data breach at a major web store selling cables.

Criminals use this type of privacy-sensitive information to commit identity fraud.

A known example is WhatsApp fraud. People then receive text messages from “friends” or “family members” with a request to transfer money, when in reality they are fraudsters behind the keys. Mikic believes that things really should change. “We are moving from a point where we thought we could keep things safe, to a period when we discovered that they could not be 100 percent secure,” says the ICT expert.

“Sooner or later you will end up in a data breach. We will have to organize our community to ensure it remains safe.” Mkitch: “For example, we now have a Social Security number. This number is indispensable. What we need to go forward is a community in which you can create a unique number in which you can identify yourself once with a party and block a leaked BSN immediately.”