There _should_ be a bunch of people in jail for that. Including, but not limited to the CEO. It should also include all the people on the org chart between whoever set that database up and the CEO.
"In April 2023, Tapio was found guilty of criminal negligence in his handling of patient data. His conviction was overturned on appeal in December 2025. (He declined my requests to interview him.)"
More specifically, he was charged of a data protection crime (i.e., note that in Finland these GDPR-like things are also in the criminal law). However, based on local news, I suppose there was not enough evidence that it was specifically a responsibility of a CEO or that CEO-level gross negligence occurred.
So they're saying this is not the case?
Yes it was. The company was fined 20M EUR on standard GDPR-basis and went bankrupt (but unlikely due to the fine alone). Please re-read the above discussion.
But luckily this sort of thing never happens in the public sector. Except for when it does: https://yle.fi/a/74-20094950
However I don't see any municipality in Finland getting fines
From that link we can see that the UK fined its own Ministry of Defence 400,000 EUR.
However it appears that Finish public bodies are deemed above reproach by their government.
> The appellate court rejected the prosecution's argument and dismissed all charges. In its unanimous decision, the court stated that neither the GDPR nor the applicable Finnish healthcare legislation required encryption or pseudonymisation of patient data at the time in question.
> Prosecutors alleged that Tapio knew about the March 2019 breach and failed to act. They claimed he neglected legal obligations to report and document the incident and did not take sufficient steps to protect the database. Tapio denied the claims, saying he was unaware of the breach until autumn 2020 and had delegated technical oversight to external IT professionals.
> The court found there was no clear legal requirement at the time obliging Tapio, as CEO, to take the specific security measures cited by the prosecution. These included firewall management, password policies, access controls, VPN implementation, and security updates.
> According to the ruling, the failure to adopt such measures did not, in the court’s view, constitute criminal negligence under Finnish law.
> Tapio’s conduct during and after the 2019 breach did not meet the threshold for criminal liability, the court concluded.
[1] https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/2...
So if not the CEO, who is accountable when something like this breach happens? The CTO? The PM The DBA? Nobody? Maybe they’ll care developer who wrote the code or botched the configuration should be prosecuted?
CEOs can justify their pay be being accountable for what their company does. They’re the CEO, after all. Maybe they’ll care more when they have some actual skin in the game.
Being the CEO of a company that handles risky, sensitive things should be risky for the CEO, personally. And their compensation can reflect that.
Provide Legal Exculpation and Sign Everything
https://how-i-met-your-mother.fandom.com/wiki/Provide_Legal_...
And civil engineering projects are constantly fixing unforeseen design problems either during construction or afterwards.
I would distinguish the failure modes as different though eg analog vs digital. Real world engineering can absorb an awful lot of minor mistakes through safety factors etc. Failure can be gradual or just a matter of degree or even just interpretation of standards. Software failures are often more digital or only matter when "under attack"
If that is not created -> CEO responsibility.
If that is not followed -> top level mgmt responsibility.
And so on, further down the chain.
It isn’t absolutely everything, it’s for negligence. If you don’t have basics in place, like independent pen-tests, ISO 27001 audits — or some equivalent — when you’re handling clinical data, then that’s negligence.
If a breach happens and you were seen to have followed best practice, you won’t be found criminally negligent.
That is part of being an executive. The buck stops with you — if you’re an executive, you’d better understand your obligations, you get the big bucks for a reason, it isn’t just a fancy job title.
Other people in the organisation can be held accountable for criminal acts, but when it comes to criminal negligence, it’s the executives that are liable, because it’s a systemic failure and you’re deemed to be in-charge of the system.
In Finland? Notably wage-compressed Finland?
No comment on the specifics of this case, I agree with you that the executive should be where the buck stops. But you would be surprised how many various execs I have met here over the years who admit behind closed doors they really do treat it as a fancy job title that barely pays above their last position, but comes with 3x the stress, and they do it simply because, well, someone has to. You can't really be surprised that most of the folks here who you might want to be in the C-suite decide it's just not worth it, that remaining a middle manager or even an IC is simply a far better value proposition.
The compensation really didn’t match what you take on in terms of responsibility and legal liability. The stress was significant too. That said, as you point out, the work needs doing.
Recommended if you have an over-active sense of duty, not otherwise.
It's all relative.
The CEO should be in prison.
Legally speaking, yes in every place I've ever lived if all those things are the case it's still a burglary, although the cops may call the victim an idiot.
"Breaking and entering" it's a criminal offence, and walking through an unlocked front door back door doesn't count. If you are on someone's land but didn't have to break in then that's trespass, which is just a civil offense.
Theft is a crime in any case (indeed even if you're not on their land e.g. snatching a phone off the street).
See https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/9 and https://www.cps.gov.uk/prosecution-guidance/theft-act-offenc...
Burglary is defined in the Theft Act 1968:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/9
The door can be wide open. The important parts are you are trespassing with the intent to commit a crime.
Yes there is:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/9
https://www.college.police.uk/guidance/residential-burglary/...
> "Breaking and entering" it's a criminal offence, and walking through an unlocked front door back door doesn't count.
No breaking and entering is known as burglary. Also if you walk through the front door with the intent to commit a crime it is still burglary. The important part is trespassing with the intent to commit a crime.
It's an odd position to take, that a crime was not committed or the offense isn't as bad if the difficulties of committing the crime have been removed or reduced.
Is it still a crime if the roadblocks to commit the crime are removed? Even applauded by some? What happens when the chief of police is telling you to go out and commit said crimes?
Law and order is dictated by the ruling party. What was a crime yesterday may not be a crime today.
So if all you did was turn a key and now you’re a burglar going to prison, when the CEO of the house spent months setting up the perfect crime scene, shouldn’t the CEO at least get an accomplice charge? Insurance fraud starts the same way…
When people from high-trust societies move to a low-trust society, they either adapt to their new environment and take an appropriately defensive posture or they will get robbed, scammed, etc.
Those naïfs from high-trust societies may not be morally at fault, but they must be blamed, because they aren't just putting themselves at risk. They must make at least reasonable efforts to secure the data in their custody.
It's been like this for decades. It's time to let go of our attachment to heaping all the culpability on attackers. Entities holding user data in custody must take the blame when they don't adequately secure that data, because that incentivizes an improved security posture.
And an improved security posture is the only credible path to a future with fewer and smaller data breaches.
Using posture is a kin to modeling or showing off clothes, the likes of which will never see the streets. Let’s all start agreeing that the term is a rug cover for whatever security wants it to be. Without checks and balances.
If your posture is having your rear end exposed and up in public then…
The Internet is a dark street in rural India and your dumbass company is a pretty young white woman walking around naked and alone at 2AM. It's not your fault morally if someone rapes you, but objectively you're an idiot if you do not expect it. Now, you getting raped doesn't just hurt you; it primarily hurts people your company stores data about. Those rapists aren't going away, so we need you to take basic precautions against getting raped and we're gonna hold you accountable for doing dumb shit that predictably leads you to getting raped.
> If your posture is having your rear end exposed and up in public then…
Right, that is most companies' current security posture: Naked butt waving in the air. "Improving your security posture" is just a euphemism for "pull your pants up and put your butt down".
> Using posture is a kin to modeling or showing off clothes, the likes of which will never see the streets. Let’s all start agreeing that the term is a rug cover for whatever security wants it to be. Without checks and balances.
No, I will not agree with that; that's ridiculous. "Improve [y]our security posture" is not some magic talisman used to seize unchecked power within an organization. It's basically just the Obama Doctrine brought to computer security: "Don't do stupid shit".
Posture is no replacement for a plan.
Originally it was “how we follow our plan” but that has since been thrown out the window. Now, posture is code word for cover.
I don’t mean to vent it’s just tiring having to deal with varying degrees of posturing where everyone is just haphazardly laying on a couch watching TV.
Not really, intent is a part of the crime. If the barrier for crime is extremely small, the crime itself is less egregious.
Planning a robbery is not the same as picking up a wallet on the sidewalk. This is a feature, not a bug.
Yes, it’s still wrong to take things but the guy should get like community service teaching white hat techniques or something. The CEO should be charged with gross negligence, fraud, and any HIPPA/Medical records laws he violated - per capita. Meaning he should face 1M+ counts of …
Morally, you burglarized a home.
Legally, at least in CA, the charge and sentencing are equivalent.
If someone also commits a murder while burglarizing you could argue the crime is more severe, but my response would be that they've committed two crimes, and the severity of the burglary in isolation is equivalent.
https://www.patientsafety.com/en/blog/human-error-retributiv...
I’m not arguing the person who stole didn’t commit a crime - just a lesser one than actually breaking in, cracking a safe, and making off with the jewels. I think the CEO and executive staff are culpable.
Yes.
> Exactly, was it a burglary when your front door is open, lights on, spotlights on your wall safe, with the keys still inserted?
The thing isn't just the discovery of the "open door", though. Thousands of people were extorted in a pretty heinous way. Even if we say breaking in took little sophistication or effort, what was done with the data also matters.