In this series of articles running through July, RealClearPolitics and RealClearDefense take an in-depth look at the intersection of cybersecurity, technology, and warfare in the 21st century. Below is Part 10.

Today more than ever, people are accessing transportation, financial information, entertainment, health services and shopping in an instant on their phones, computers, and tablets. Every day there are new announcements touting the latest breakthroughs in technology that will allow for simplification, automation, and the betterment of the lives of those around the world. This is making even more information available at our fingertips 24 hours a day, helping many people do more in less time.

But these innovations are also putting the personal information of consumers and customers more at risk to the ever-present and growing threat of cyberattacks. It feels like almost daily you hear of a company that didn’t invest in the right cyber defenses. Just recently, we learned of a massive information breach at the online genealogy platform MyHeritage that impacted the account information of 92 million users.

And it’s not just companies dealing in people’s personal data and identifiable information that are under attack. The popular national restaurant chain, Chili’s, announced a cyberattack on its internal information had compromised consumers’ financial data.

A quick Google search will show these were just two of many reports detailing cyberattacks targeting the personal information of millions of people not just in America, but around the world.

Sarah Pompei is the head of a public affairs consulting firm, POMPEI VIII, LLC. She previously worked on the public policy team at Lyft, was director of corporate communications at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and worked with numerous political campaigns and organizations across the country.