The poor security practices date back to 2017 and may have left valuable information like names, email addresses, and passwords open to hackers. Even more sensitive data may have been exposed as well, like religion, sexual orientation and parents’ income ranges. With security breaches and online privacy becoming an increasingly troubling topic in the tech world, understanding how to protect yourself can go a long way in ensuring your data is actually secure. To make matters worse, Chegg collected some intensely sensitive data, including religious affiliation, sexual orientation, and even parental income. This puts the lax data protection measures in context as a serious problem to be addressed. As for exactly what Chegg did wrong, the FTC noted that Chegg failed to implement basic security measures, stored information insecurely, and didn’t develop adequate security policies and training. The investigation means that Chegg will have to substantially shore up its security, as well as likely pay a fine in the near future. The FTC isn’t just looking to fine businesses for no reason either. The reality is that security breaches have a dramatically negative effect on businesses, with the average costing owners approximately $10 million per breach. Suffice it to say, there isn’t a small business in the world that can shoulder that cost for weak data protection. Even worse is how these security breaches happen. Sometimes, it can be as simple as a weak password, which leads to a company-wide breach that can cause some serious problems, like Fast Company experienced last month. Your best bet at protecting yourself there is a password manager, which can store secure passwords for you and let you know when one has been compromised.
