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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday February 16 2017, @01:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the i-am-in-the-wrong-profession dept.

From www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/a3460256.html

Rapidly becoming more important than even the 24/7 hairdresser, the social media manager and the "paleo genius" personal chef, top cyber-security consultants are the most in-demand for the super-rich, business tycoons and the A-list as they look to keep their embarrassing secrets, naked photos and diva-ish demands out of the hands of hackers.

After Beckileaks, those consultants might just be ramping up their rates because, for brand-reliant celebrities, the financial damage, reputational risk and sheer embarrassment of such revelations are one of the most serious threats to their careers.

[...] Benjamin Arnold, whose SORTED personal management firm acts as a fixer for London's super-rich, says "There's been a definite increase in concern about cyber-protection among high-net-worth [HNW] and celebrity clients, especially following hacking incidents such as the [Lawrence] iCloud hack which exposed — quite literally — a number of high-profile celebrities. We are all exposed to the same risk but high-profile or HNW individuals are at a much bigger threat, as the value of their assets make them more of a target."

His clients will pay "anything from £2,500 up to £15,000 for a security sweep" and another £5,000 for training, "putting in best practice for the family, just as you would for locking up the house". It's small cash for some celebs, who believe that a brutal data-hack could cost them their career.

[...] Consultants say one-off "cyber-hygiene" sessions, costing as much as £3,000, are increasingly popular: tech sleuths will comb through clients' smartphones, laptops, tablets, external hard drives and cloud accounts, set up two-factor authentication (where logging into, say, a Gmail or Twitter account involves filling in a unique code that's sent to a smartphone), work on complex passwords (and insist on clients using different ones for every account), set up encrypted email services and install cyber-security software onto their home and work networks.


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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday February 16 2017, @04:22PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday February 16 2017, @04:22PM (#467846)

    There are several aspects of this that make this substantially different:
    1. The consequences of the things we're talking about here are public embarrassment, not imprisonment or something like that. And not even that much public embarrassment, at this point, because very few people really care.
    2. The risk is from private individuals, not the government. Arguments about what the government should or shouldn't be able to do are irrelevant here.
    3. The people in question chose to become celebrities, well aware of the consequences of that choice.

    --
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  • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday February 16 2017, @05:49PM

    by butthurt (6141) on Thursday February 16 2017, @05:49PM (#467895) Journal

    The article says "personal photos of Prince George and Princess Charlotte" were among the pilfered data. Those people are children.
    They didn't choose to be celebrities.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_George_of_Cambridge [wikipedia.org]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Charlotte_of_Cambridge [wikipedia.org]

    Governments can certainly engage in the same sorts of attacks, as highlighted in yesterday's story about Microsoft calling for a "digital Geneva Convention."