My awakening to reality: When you were little, you would watch TV shows, and wonder why they only showed parts of the house the family lived in. It was a whole house, in your mind at least, so why not show the different areas. One day I was given the opportunity to look behind the scenes of one of my favorite shows. To my young mind's disappointment, it wasn't a real house. It was a TV show SET! I was shocked and tramatized for a couple of days. It was fake! Some parts were literally made out of cardboard.
Later on in life, when I ended up representing big brands, I made the same discovery... It's all cardboard. I've met with IT departments of major corporations, Fortune 100 companies, they are idiots. They don't even bother to change passwords monthly, dont bother to update core systems. All the executives want them to do is make sure their emails work, since most executives don't appreciate or understand what having a secure and updating technology infrastructure really equates too. I usually decline projects where I see major red flags, PCI violations, and risks that are not being solved. Usually I warn my inner circle to never do business with these companies. The stock owners, owners of the corp, and executives dont give a shit except making suring they can squeeze every possible penny out of the company. Not all are like this, but a majority of them are. Their IT departments are ran on a shoe string budget, and some of them have a paper clip and glue to fix servers. So no, it's not surprising when i see that they eventually get hacked and data is released online.
There is no security, and once breached, they don't hire people with wages/salaries that can handling a major hack, or even realize they are still being hacked. I know, because usually 2 months later, they are calling back asking or consulting. That's when prices double.
I don't have credit cards. All my debit cards connect only to accounts with low funds. I use cash whenever possible. I limit my exposure online, by using one debit account connected to a bank account with great customer service and disput resolution. I do a ton of other shit to limit the amount of paperwork with my ssn number on it, cause you will be surprised how many file cabinets with a $1 lock contain paperwork with SSN, cause the owners think that is secure.
Your world is made up of cardboard.
Good luck bro.