14 DAY TRIAL // Hackers hit the bank. Data is stolen. People's identities are in danger. Bank representatives don't care. That says it all in a nutshell. In my opinion, it's not the bank's fault that hackers exist and attack databases. It all happened in Indiana, involving the Old National Bancorp and tens of thousands of customers, as I've seen on Wired's blog.
The bank had been sued by customers who allegedly suffered "substantial potential economic damages". When I first got my eyes on this piece of news I was quite surprised - they were suing the bank because a hacker got a hold of their information and now they stood in fear because their identities could be stolen. In my opinion, that's like suing the candy store because their products make you fat. In any case, no damage had been done to any of the customers, nothing happened with their IDs, but they were still suing. The plaintiff also demanded the bank to repay them because of the fact that they feared identity theft all the time. Let's be serious, they didn't stand a chance against the bank.
It would have been another thing if the bank had disclosed their data by mistake or something like that, but it was the hackers' fault, plus: nobody got hurt. It's one thing that malicious users do a lot of damage on the Internet, but having other people punished for what hackers do does not seem fair to me. And that was the judge's opinion as well.
More and more banks get hacked these days, data's phished, or even worse, money gets stolen. But I'm wondering - are there any insurance policies that cover the damages for getting hacked? If not, there should be, as this has become a real threat to people that surf the Web or who have their data stored on the Net.