The biggest data breaches of the last 15 years
We've become pretty well accustomed to large scale data breaches over recent years. But that doesn’t mean that the numbers involved aren't still significant.
Web hosting comparison site HostingTribunal has put together an infographic looking at the 15 biggest breaches of the last 15 years.
Humans are still the weakest link in information security
According to a new report, more than half of all C-suite executives (53 percent) and 28 percent of small business owners who suffered a data breach say that human error or accidental loss by an external vendor/source was the cause.
The annual data protection report from information security service Shred-It also finds 21 percent of executives and 28 percent of small business owners admit deliberate theft or sabotage by an employee/insider was the cause of the data breach.
US Customs and Border Protection says photos of thousands of travelers were stolen in a data breach
Hackers have stolen the photographs of travellers entering and leaving the US, as well as photos of their license plates, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has said.
The cyberattack was carried out on the network of a federal subcontractor, and the images were taken as part of a "malicious cyberattack". Although the hack attack has only just been revealed publicly, CBP first learned of it on May 31.
64 percent of organizations believe they have suffered a breach due to privileged access
A global survey of over 1,000 IT security decision makers by privileged access management specialist BeyondTrust reveals that 64 percent believe they've had either a direct or indirect breach due to employee access in the last year, and 62 percent believe they've had a breach due to vendor access.
Employee behavior continues to be a challenge for a majority of organizations. Writing down passwords, for example, is cited as a problem by 60 percent of organizations, while colleagues telling each other passwords was also an issue for 58 percent of organizations in 2019.
Medical and financial details of 12 million Americans exposed in Quest Diagnostics data breach
Medical testing firm and clinical laboratory Quest Diagnostics has revealed that a data breach has led to the records of nearly 12 million of its customers being exposed. The data includes financial data, Social Security numbers and medical information.
Quest Diagnostics was itself not the target of hackers, but the American Medical Collection Agency (AMCA) was. The company is used by Optum360 for billing collections services, and Optum360 is used by Quest Diagnostics.
Data breaches exposed 2.8 billion consumer records in 2018
New data from digital identity platform ForgeRock reveals that data breaches cost US organizations over $654 billion as well as exposing more than 2.8 billion consumer records.
Personally identifiable information (PII) was the most targeted data for breaches in 2018, accounting for 97 percent of all breaches, with unauthorized access encompassing 34 percent of all attacks.
Flipboard hacked -- attackers had access to database of user information for 9 months
Flipboard is resetting the passwords of millions of users after suffering a data breach. Hackers were able to access databases containing usernames and passwords, as well as access tokens for some third-party services.
The company has not revealed how many users are affected by the security incident, but says that hackers had access to its systems for a nine months.
Reported data breaches up more than 56 percent
According to the latest Data Breach Report from Risk Based Security the number of reported data breaches was up 56.4 percent in the first quarter of 2019 compared to the same period last year.
The increase in reporting could be a result of new legislation like GDPR that obliges businesses to be more open about security issues. The number of exposed records was also up by 28.9 percent. Already in 2019, there have been three breaches exposing 100 million or more records.
Personal details of 80 million US households exposed on unsecured Microsoft cloud server
Security researchers have discovered an unprotected database stored on a Microsoft cloud server. The 24GB database includes personal information about 80 million households across the US.
The researchers from vpnMentor were working on a web mapping project when they made the discovery. They say that as the database they found left out in the open relates to American households which include multiple residents, the data breach could potentially affect hundreds of millions of people.
Data breaches more common than rain in the UK
The UK has something of a reputation for its wet climate, and its citizens for constantly talking about the weather. So it may come as a surprise to find that in the UK the chance of experiencing a data breach is higher than that of encountering a rainy day.
A survey by technology services company Probrand shows 43 percent of UK businesses having suffered a cyber breach or attack in the last 12 months as against just 36.4 percent chance on average of encountering a wet day.
Panic Button secures data -- by destroying it
One of the biggest worries about someone gaining unauthorized access to your computer is that they can view and steal your data.
The CyberYozh security group has launched a product that protects your sensitive files, browser data and more, by taking the nuclear option of destroying it.
Protecting email deliverability before and after a data breach
The financial impact of a data breach continues to climb for businesses. IBM’s 2018 Cost of a Data Breach Study placed the average total cost of a data breach at $3.86 million, an increase of more than six percent compared to 2017. Every stolen or lost record costs a company $148, putting a hefty price tag on breaches of any size.
Beyond immediate expenses, the required email notification to customers in the database can negatively contribute to a company’s ability to recover from the breach. FTC regulations require the company to contact every customer in their database via email or another method, such as direct mail. If there is a spike in undeliverable emails, mailbox providers (MBPs) will notice the spike, negatively impacting the company’s email deliverability. Thankfully, this impact can be reduced by minimizing unnecessary data before a potential breach and acting immediately after recognizing the breach.
Gearbest issues response to data breach
Following on from yesterday's story about eCommerce site Gearbest leaking customer data the company has issued an official response to ethical hacker Noam Rotem’s report.
It says that its own servers are secure but that, "external tools we use to temporarily store data" may have been accessed by others leading to security having been compromised.
Gearbest security flaw leaks millions of order and user details
A badly configured server at Gearbest, the Chinese purveyor of technology and other stuff online, has leaked millions of user profiles and order details.
White hat hacker Noam Rotem discovered an Elasticsearch server that was -- indeed still is at the time of writing -- leaking millions of records each week. These include customer data, orders, and payment records. The server wasn't protected with a password, potentially allowing anyone to search its data.
Americans more likely to stop dealing with a brand after a breach but Brits hold a grudge for longer
New research into consumer trust and spending habits by contact center payment security company PCI Pal shows 62 percent of Americans report that they will stop spending with a brand for several months following a hack or breach, versus 44 percent of Brits.
But when the British do react they do so for the long term, 41 percent of British consumers never return to a brand after a hack compared to only 21 percent of Americans.
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