Adobe Hacked!

     Two weeks ago, the Adobe servers were maliciously hacked and the information of almost 3 million users was stolen including credit card information, usernames, e-mail addresses, and passwords. You may or may not have known this, but more importantly, this comes at a very inopportune time for Adobe. Adobe has been trying to reassure their users that switching to their new Creative Cloud, a monthly subscription based service, is a good idea. With the recent security issues, this has a lot of users wary. At EFillF Productions, we have been looking into switching to Adobe’s Creative Cloud, but are also leery of security concerns as well as  a list of other valid concerns.

     What does this really mean for the future of Adobe? In order to glean that information, we looked at a similar security breech that occurred two years ago on the Sony PlayStation® Network. Sony never revealed how far reaching the hack was but stated it potentially reached all of their 70+ million users. This security breech caused Sony’s network to be down for almost six months (which hasn’t happened with Adobe), and everyone was forced to change their personal login information (Adobe has only done this with those affected). While this was a major inconvenience for Sony PlayStation® Network users, the company didn't see a decrease in users to the system. Two years later, PlayStation® is still one of the biggest online applications.

     "Cyber attacks are one of the unfortunate realities of doing business today," Brad Arkin, Adobe's chief security officer, wrote in a blog post Thursday. "Given the profile and widespread use of many of our products, Adobe has attracted increasing attention from cyber attackers." Perhaps, the inclusion of the Adobe Creative Cloud model only made it that much more tempting for the hackers. More than likely this experience will have Adobere-examining their Creative Cloud model for those who do not wish to put their personal information, such as credit cards, on the internet and will also force Adobe to upgrade their security protocols for future customers. It remains to be seen how this has affected their user base, but everyone we have spoken to are still using Adobe Creative Cloud. One thing that is almost certain though is that users or those considering using Adobe Creative Cloud should be on the lookout for Adobe “Apology freebies” like PlayStation® did when they were hacked.

Written By: Jeremy Hatfield
Edited By: Emily Ledergerber

Filmmaker/Tech

EFillF Productions, LLC

www.efillfproductions.net