Could your retirement be the next cybercrime casualty?
Last Friday, online watchdogs were stunned to witness iron-clad websites like Twitter, Netflix and the Wall Street Journal shut down for hours in a massive cyberattack.
The ill effects quickly rippled across the Internet to crush other popular sites such as CNN, HBO, Etsy, Spotify, Yelp and The New York Times.
This massive, brute force disruption is just the tip of a proverbial iceberg and underscores the fragility of our digital infrastructure. Basically, hackers used the combined power of thousands of infected servers to flood these websites with so much concentrated traffic that their servers just gave up.
Sadly, today is a time of growing fears about cyberthreats in the United States, where hackers (both individual and state-sponsored) are breaching our news and political organizations, private email servers and election agencies. The volume, scope and cost of cybercrimes are growing and no organization or individual is safe.
Did you know the FDIC recently reported a security breach in its own internal system? Yes, that FDIC… the one that is responsible for insuring your bank account up to $250,000!
If a U.S. cabinet member’s emails can be hacked, just how safe is your bank or retirement account? The stocks, bonds and “cash” your bank is storing for your future are simply electrons that can be erased with a click during a cyberattack.
Some experts believe Russian President Vladimir Putin has set up a 6,000+ member cyber brigade working night and day to develop ways to destroy, disrupt and erase our financial markets. After all, these institutions are powered by data that could conceivably be wiped clean by Putin, Syria or North Korea without warning.
Experts estimate that nearly 300 million records were leaked last year alone, more than $1 billion was stolen and 190 million consumers were compromised by data hacks. In addition, the number of identity theft cases has more than doubled over the last decade. In 2005, cybercrime already cost the average U.S. business $24.000 a year, but now that cost has ballooned to a $1.5 million yearly average.
What can you do? Awareness, education, monitoring and response all play a role in keeping your personal information safe. And no retirement portfolio should be without physical gold and/or silver in generous amounts.
GOLD: THE ULTIMATE PHYSICAL HEDGE AGAINST HACKERS
If you’re considering gold for your retirement account, it could be just in the nick of time. In 2014, Bloomberg Business Week exposed “The NASDAQ Hack”: a terrifying computer virus planted by Russia into our financial market’s operating system. Russia had the power to shut down the New York Stock Exchange!
“Investors should have no doubt about the ability of a number of foreign cyberwarfare units to disrupt major stock exchanges in the US and elsewhere,” says Jim Rickards, noted financial expert.
Rickards believes that gold is the ideal safe-haven from cyberhackers because it can’t be hacked or erased. He suggests investors should consider storing at least a portion of their wealth in physical precious metals that are impervious to computer theft.
Wall Street pundit Jim Grant thinks that owning gold is a sensible hedge against what he sees as a coming wave of monetary disorder. He believes that when disruptive events start reaching beyond news sites to hit banks and financial markets, gold investors could be richly rewarded as the rest of the world deserts “paper” assets for physical assets.
Cybercrime is here to stay and there is probably no better way to insulate your hard-earned money from cyberthreats than by owning physical gold. The global market for gold is large and liquid. Reputable gold dealers operate in every major country. When a major cyber attack occurs at a major bank or stock exchange, you will be glad you own physical gold.
