Is There Anything that Can't be Hacked Today? Well - YES
Equifax, the OPM, now the SEC - is there anything that can’t be hacked? Well… yes!
The financial world is still assessing the damage of the massive Equifax hacking. People are scrambling to find a safe way to figure out if they were affected without giving up their rights towards a fair resolution. The CEO has stepped down. 143 million people could be affected. Are you one of them?
Now we find out the SEC was hacked. That’s on top of other high profile hacks such as Verizon, Dropbox, and Target.
Time Magazine reports that the Securities and Exchange Commission has discovered a breach of their filing system. This breach could have been used to enact some illegal trades in 2016. A patch was quickly implemented, but some government laptops with sensitive information are missing, leaving questions and uncertainty about what hands this information is in and to what ends.
The financial world has been reeling with all this data insecurity. How long until a major brokerage house is hacked? Will your assets be safe? Is there anywhere safe?
Gold: An Un-hackable Asset
Target was notoriously hacked. Home Depot was hacked. The government’s Office of Personnel Management was hacked. Even bitcoin can be hacked - remember Mt. Gox? Wired has compiled a list of the biggest hacks of 2017 - so far.
With all of this hacking you might be feeling insecure about your online accounts and virtual assets. Isn’t it strange to be living in an age in which so much wealth is, in reality, just blips in a computer database? Those blips represent currency, stock certificates, instruments of debt and other asset classes all subject to counterparty risk.
Should ALL your assets be vulnerable to hackers?
Consider that physical precious metals that are in your possession are NOT vulnerable to online hackers or a reliance on the entire financial system.
No one can make the gold in your safe at home disappear with a few keystrokes on a computer in Russia. YOU are in control of your home security and YOU know you’ve done a great job at keeping your family and valuables safe and secure. Your silver is not subject to the competence, or lack thereof, of database techs at various financial firms.
Can you say the same about your other assets? Every account you have is a point of vulnerability, and while online accounts are unavoidable these days, should ALL your wealth be this vulnerable to third party risk?
We should also mention the potential for grid failure. If there is a major attack or some kind of catastrophic event, maybe a natural disaster that takes out the power grid and there is no internet, no access to online accounts, no power or ATMs, what do you really have? Consider that this is currently the situation in Puerto Rico. 3.4 million U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico are still without power and water a week after hurricane Maria, with no restoration in sight.
Disasters happen, and they can happen to you.
If you have some gold and silver coins stored securely in your home, you at least have something with which to buy food and fuel should your bank accounts become inaccessible. Precious metals provide that extra peace of mind any prepared person should have in these times. Now is a great time to add this level of security to your portfolio. Call us to get started.