Over 3,800 data breaches reported in the first half of 2019
2019 is on track to be another 'worst on record' year for data breaches according to a new report from Risk Based Security which finds the number of reported breaches has gone up by 54 percent and the number of exposed records by 52 percent compared to the first six months of 2018.
It shows 3,813 breaches have been reported in the first six months of 2019, exposing more than 4.1 billion records. Eight breaches alone have exposed over 3.2 billion records, 78.6 percent of the total, between them.
C-Suite in the hot seat -- Execs' responsibility regarding digital security
Are you killing your numbers? Crushing your targets? Growing your team? Leading with authenticity and building a loyal following? What a shame it is that your tenure may already be over.
While you were busy winning and shredding the competition, a cybercriminal breached your network. Don’t be too embarrassed, it happens to almost everyone these days. The average "dwell time" of an intruder is more than 100 days, so it’s hard to know exactly when that bucket of ice water was tossed on your dreams. Unfortunately, even if you’re doing everything right, recent examples illustrate that our jobs are on the line when hackers come a knockin’.
Load balancer flaw could lead to major breaches at large organizations
A security flaw in the F5 Networks’ BIG-IP load balancer, which is popular among governments, banks, and other large corporations, could be exploited to allow network access.
F-Secure senior security consultant Christoffer Jerkeby has discovered the issue in the Tcl programming language that BIG-IP's iRules (the feature that BIG-IP uses to direct incoming web traffic) are written in. Certain coding practices allow attackers to inject arbitrary Tcl commands, which could be executed in the security context of the target Tcl script.
Personal details of 106 million Americans and Canadians stolen in huge Capital One data breach
A hacker has been arrested following a massive data breach at Capital One. The attacker -- Paige A Thompson, also known as "erratic" -- was able to access the credit applications of 100 million Americans and 6 million Canadians after exploiting a "configuration vulnerability".
In most cases, personal details such as name, date of birth, address and phone number were exposed by Thompson, but for tens of thousands of individuals, she also gained access to credit scores, Social Security numbers and account balances.
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.
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