The Department of Homeland Security
The Department of Energy
The National Nuclear Security Administration
The State Department
Microsoft and Cisco
Corporate Malfeasance: Volkswagen
Volkswagen is a German multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg.
Germany. The company at one time owned 70 percent of the U.S. passenger-car diesel
market, a dominance it put in jeopardy with the Dieselgate scandal of 2015.
Researchers discovered that Volkswagen was cheating on diesel-emissions by "programming
some diesel-fueled cars to turn on emission controls only when being tested." These "defeat
devices" were installed on more than half a million diesel cars in the U.S. and more than 10.5
million more globally to make it appear that they were fully compliant with federal emissions
levels. They were not. In fact, the engines emitted far more pollution than recorded.
In the first two months of the scandal, Volkswagen lost 46% of its value. In 2016, the company
announced it was eliminating 30,000 jobs worldwide. And sadly, the damages are still rolling in
- to the tune of booking $35 billion of charges to earnings.
Data Breach: SolarWinds Orion
SolarWinds Corporation is an American company (based in Austin TX) that develops software
for businesses to manager their networks, systems, and information technology
infrastructure. In 2020, the company was the victim of one of the largest data breaches in
history. SolarWinds released a software update for its Orion platform that inadvertently
included hacked code. This allowed a hacker to open a "backdoor" to the system and steal
information for months before someone finally discovered the leak. The company reported
that up to 18,000 of its customers were vulnerable, including:
While many of SolarWinds clients include names of companies and government agencies that
fully understand the threats and vulnerabilities of cybersecurity, this breach highlighted the
need for organizations to monitor the applications they use from third-party vendors.
It is important to note that Security Magazine, a leading magazine covering security news and
trends, called 2020 the worst year on record for data breaches.
THE NEW RISK MANAGEMENT | 3
