I remember when email security was a top concern to folks.
I argued for encryption of the files sent. Reached out to the technical side of the consulting company; the person I interfaced with seemed fine with the idea -- even if it wasn't their standard procedure. (Visions of however many companies sending this data each month, quarter, whatever.)
And promptly got chewed out by my management for my efforts.
It's not just that people like this don't know. It's that they are willfully ignorant until the pain becomes too great.
In other words, you can think of this -- kind of like pollution -- as a large momentum of externalized costs.
Even when companies tank, many of the managers responsible simply move on -- or have already moved on. Customers/clients experiences losses they never fully recoup. The wheel turns, and approximately the same people emerge in a new configuration of business that repeats the story.
P.S. This also reminds me of telling a geologist friend that they should really encrypt their online consulting on oil fiend technical issues for clients in the Far East. A lot of email and IM -- back before most any productized IM had encryption, neither of connection nor of content.
If I were playing the other side, I'd definitely scrape those to learn where production was at, technical tips and knowledge transfer, but also particularly -- and if I weren't interested in the geology and technical side, itself -- to learn of production expectations and use those to maximize the revenue I extracted in rights, leases, perhaps even outright confiscation in some cases.
Oh, not to mention taking advantage of inside knowledge to profit from market valuations, where accessible to investment.