The silver screen has been host to some memorable, and sometimes down right bizarre data breaches. Whilst they may not always be the most realistic, and sometimes provide truly comedic moments, we can’t help but have a soft spot for their fantastical nature, having captured our imaginations for generations. Take a look at 5 of our favourites, did any of yours make the list? Spoilers below, but with the most recent release being 1999 that’s on you really.
5. Independence Day (1996)
If Jeff Goldblum hadn’t uploaded that Virus we would all be worshipping our squid like overlords right now, sure there would be a chance we’d be on the brink of extinction, but on the bright side they probably have a much more stable government structure. Considering their advanced technology and how much time their UFO’s spent in the sky you would think the idea of Cloud migration for their critical data would have come to mind.
4. Wargames (1983)
Before Broderick had the mother of all days off as Ferris he was bumbling his way unwittingly into a deadly conversation with a military computer system. Some chaos ensues and the world is brought to the brink of a deadly thermonuclear war. Whilst it certainly may not have been the most realistic portrayal, it’s a great representation of youth finding new ways to breach security systems, and of course the need for public sector to have some tighter measures in place!
3. The Matrix (1999)
This turn of the millennium classic is essentially one big data breach, with Neo and the crew patching themselves into the complex fake reality of The Matrix throughout. With wall running, kung fu, bullet dodging and some amazing philosophy it’s an entertaining watch that has aged incredibly well. It goes to show that it takes a human touch to prove resilient and adaptable against data breaches, although we would love to see some of our tech engineers dressed in the agents classic black suits, and to hear the line ‘Mr Anderson’ spoken in a North West UK accent.
2. Jurassic Park (1993)
If there was ever a Hollywood epic to show the importance of having strong measures in place for the possibility of defending your data from a disgruntled employee then it has to be everyone’s favourite dinosaur related theme park. We’re sure Dennis didn’t mean for things to escalate like they did before finding himself knocked down the food chain shortly after, but taking out a number of the parks security systems released some hungry tourist attractions. Samuel Jacksons character certainly looked like he wished he had a managed Synapse service to come and get back their critical data and apps with a 1 hour response time!
1. Mission Impossible (1996)
You’re already humming the theme tune aren’t you? Descending from the ceiling of an elaborate CIA vault is certainly a much more dramatic approach to cyber attacking a system. With all the detection methods that were in place a simple CCTV set up could have resolved the issue. It just goes to show, you should pay for what you will use instead of paying for features you don’t need!
