An unknown hacker has been finding unsecured online databases and replacing their contents with the word “Meow”. Cute, except that no one knows if the hacker is stealing the data first. He or she has now hit more than 1,500 databases, a reminder that poor security is common and motivator for data owners to improve it.
The pandemic may have made it harder for new companies to raise funds, but investors do seem willing to double down on companies that have already reached significant size and industry position. Case in point: cloud contact vendor Talkdesk has just raised a $143 million Series C, raising its total to $268 million and pegging its value at more than $3 billion.
Those retailers downplaying security might want to think again based on this Dentsu Aegis Network study, which found that 77% of global consumers would stop doing business with a brand that lost their data or used it irresponsibly and 32% opted out of personalized advertising in the past year. There’s a very interesting set of four scenarios for how personal data use might evolve in the near future – definitely worth a look.
GrowthLoop will use TransUnion identity data to improve U.S. consumer match rates on client files sent to advertising media such as Facebook and Google Ads. The data should also help clients to find matches among records within their files, building more accurate customer profiles. GrowthLoop calls itself a “composable CDP”, meaning it works with data assembled in external data warehouses.