It’s certainly in the interest of any security firm to to portray the state of cybersecurity as dire to make their wares more appealing, and that’s something any reader should keep in mind when reading quotes from a security professional. But this is a pretty direct link between a panic and a pay-out for a security firm. Yes, I expect security firms to make money for making the Internet more secure, but I am skeptical of a firm with a financial incentive in creating a panic to be the main source for a story that causes a panic. If nothing else, it should be disclosed in the New York Times story that the firm that reported a major breach hoped to directly profit from it. We don’t just need hashed passwords salted, we need grains of salt in our reporting around security.
— Kashmir Hill commenting on Hold Security’s monetizing a breach they announced.
What do you think?