Big Data weaponry is in need of serious underpinning following a series of recent breaches. The 6-month downfall due to massive occurrences of hacking has placed the biggest names in the industry under stern scrutiny. Data loss severely damaged Sony PlayStation’s network, sending it offline to evaluate the amount of customers’ records that were hacked. What hurts more is that this is not the first time a catastrophe of this kind overran Sony.

The spread of cyber terrorism has become a hot topic at an Opera-hosted event entitled “Big Data Discourses.”  Here, they discussed on how revolutionizing government, businesses and society could leverage data explosion.

US Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and Co-Founder of the strategic security firm Chertoff Group, Michael Chertoff was present in the event. He made some notable remarks on analytics technology advancements and fighting crimes in the real and cyber space, saying “innovative technology solutions have brought tremendous value in our efforts to stay ahead and combat terrorism around the world. Whether it is sorting through vast amounts of data to identify potential risk, predicting potential threats, providing quick and informed analysis to our frontline personnel, or sharing information in real time, these tools are helping to keep us safer every day.”

Perhaps anything that puts us at risk will spark updates in services, and sometimes, huge overhauls. This is how the topic of security, so important to our current technology environment, could drive changes across platforms and industries. A  feast on security coverage continued last week, as the tech community witnessed how ADP, Citibank, Amazon, RSA and many more became the latest victims of cyber assaults. One company, however, has managed to take the lead in offering a cloud-safeguarding solution. VMware took a huge leap in tackling the dilemma of virtual hacking on a global scale.

Being the heartbeat of cloud, mobile and social platforms, Big Data has to be as close to 100 percent safe from cyber attacks as possible, though this is an impossible feat. But companies still do their best to protect a person’s identity, lest an enterprise’s credibility be jeopardized. And what would be worse is if this information were to reach the wrong hands, like the real-world terrorists. It’s a real issue we all need to think about, and innovate from there.