Security Breach (a PINK Tuesday post)
Image by Laughing Squid via Flickr
I’ve just received the fifth email warning today, informing me that my email address has been pirated by an ‘unauthorized person’ outside of the Epsilon system. Epsilon is apparently a massive e-mailing machine, but I’m awfully glad I don’t own their stock today as I open email #5 from yet another apologetic company.
“We are confident,” my emails read, “that the information that was retrieved did not include any customer account or financial information.” And I’m shaking my head now, asking no one in particular if that’s supposed to make me feel better – more secure, more safe – now that some dishonest hacker has information about me from FIVE different sources?!
Are you kidding me?
How should one react when their security has been breached?
In the case of Epsilon’s failure to keep my personal information secure, I’ve been instructed NOT TO REPLY to requests for login ID’s or passwords. In fact, it is advised that I do not reply to ANY email asking for any sort of personal information, because now that security has been breached, I just can’t know who I can trust. Better to remain skeptical of everyone, reporting suspicious activity to the ‘How To Report Fraud’ hotline, right? At least that’s what the sincerely apologetic emails in my inbox tell me.
Honestly, this is what I tend to do when my emotional security has been breached, too.
Don’t reply.
Hole up in my own little world.
Be a skeptic.
Doubt everyone.
Trust no one.
A breach in trust may warrant such responses! After all, there isn’t a Fraud Hotline when it comes to the suspicious (and sometimes malicious) activity of people. If I’m to protect myself from further breaches, I have got to be proactive by sandbagging and boarding up the windows and doors. There is no way that I’m exposing myself to the elements of betrayal and dishonesty again.
So I change all of my passwords and shut down my operating system. No one gets in.
Dr. Roland Summit, a leader in the medical field and faithful advocate of the sexually abused child, had this to say about the effects of such abuse in children:
“The uncertainty of sorting out enemies from friends impairs the emotional security of victims and their advocates.”[1]
Whether our trust has been breached dramatically through abuse or more subtly through neglect or broken promises, the result is almost always impaired emotional security. Can anyone be trusted now?
On this PINK Tuesday, consider the security breaches you’re reeling from.
Who has broken your trust?
Who has betrayed your faith?
Who has failed to live up to your belief in them?
Where have you fallen victim to emotional pirates, who have taken your innocence as plunder?
These are difficult things you’re dealing with. Lost friends. Broken marriages. Runaway children.
God’s Word for you and me, and our words for those who seek to hack into our joy, sound something like Joseph’s response to his traitorous brothers in Genesis 50:20:
“Even though you meant harm to me, God meant it for good, to achieve his present end, the survival of many people.”
Joseph lived his entire life sorting out enemies from friends.
He didn’t hole up in his own little world.
He fought the urge to become a skeptic.
He chose not to doubt everyone.
He overcame the temptation to trust no one.
In the end, he was able to redeem those who had breached his trust and discarded him, body and soul; to stand and say that God meant it all for good.
Will you?
[1]Murphy, Edward F.: Handbook for Spiritual Warfare. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1996, S. 467
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