Many of us that work with data are somewhat insulated from the effects of a data breach. Each of us is responsible for writing software, managing the database platform, perhaps even in charge of configuring security. However, in the event of an attack or loss of data, many of us would likely be responsible for the technical aspects of analyzing the weakness or cause of the incident, determining what data might be lost, or perhaps helping to change systems to prevent future incidents.

Would many of us deal with the penalties or financial liabilities of data loss? Perhaps indirectly, but not much. However our employers (or more likely, their insurance companies) will deal with penalties. Right now there isn't a lot of liability for companies that lose data. Minor penalties and credit monitoring, but many people are getting upset, which might result in changes.

What does a company owe you if your information is lost? It's debatable, and this is likely to become a bigger issue over time as more and more people are affected by this issue. I expect that penalties will increase over time, this will also mean that the requirements and work each of us as data professionals need to do will grow.

While encryption and other measures can help, they don't completely protect data. Good security comes about from a number of layers, each of which is designed to thwart, or limit the success of, certain attacks. Those of us that work with data, whether in development or administrative roles, need to educate ourselves and continue to improve our ability to implement secure applications.