Qatar mulls $1m fine for hacked firms
Qatar companies could be fined up to QR5m ($1.37m) if they fail to prevent data leaks, under a new law being considered by officials.
Authorities are reportedly examining a proposed data privacy law that has been in the pipeline since at least 2011, but which has become particularly timely this year in the aftermath of the huge data breach at Qatar National Bank (QNB) in April.
A total of 1.4GB of files from QNB, containing thousands of customers’ records, including passwords, account numbers, and credit card information, uploaded to a file-sharing website, before being later removed, it emerged.
The incident prompted an investigation by QNB.
Doha News said that Qatar’s Shura Council had unanimously approved the legislation with some amendments, after the cabinet signed off a draft in January.
The legislation obliges organisations to take all necessary steps to protect personal information from being hacked.
The law would also make it illegal for companies to use an individual’s data without their consent, the newspaper reported.
Courtesy: arabianbusiness.com
Lol? This is unfair, First of all what do they mean by prevent data leaks?.. You cannot 100% prevent data leaks because everything has a vulnerability, every company has it own loopholes, eventually each one of them is vulnerable to this attacks. What i'm sayin is, do not just fined them if they failed to prevent these attacks, but fined them if they don't do something after these attacks.. i.e what happens next after the attack, what precaution should they do in order to lessen the damage that happen. Most Companies only invest in preventing measures or most of their goal is to prevent an attack, this thinking is reasonable but what will happen if they fail to prevent the attacks? what will they do about it?.
This is a wise move - we are pleased
Most companies are aware of the dangers being faced as far as data protection is concerned.. What we need more of is transparency of actions