New detection platform built to prevent intellectual property theft
Most high-value digital assets, including source code, financial reports, strategic roadmaps, patents and proprietary research, don’t contain traditional sensitive data identifiers. As a result, they’re invisible to legacy pattern-matching tools.
This blind spot exposes organizations to intellectual property theft, insider threats, and accidental leaks through modern collaboration platforms and shadow AI tools. This is why Nightfall is today announcing the launch of AI File Classifier Detectors, a solution that uses large language models (LLMs) to classify and protect business-critical documents that traditional DLP tools can‘t see.
One in 44 GenAI prompts risks a data leak
In October, one in every 44 GenAI prompts submitted from enterprise networks posed a high risk of data leakage, impacting 87 percent of organizations that use GenAI regularly.
A study from Check Point Research finds an additional 19 percent of prompts contained potentially sensitive information such as internal communications, customer data, or proprietary code. These risks coincide with an eight percent increase in average daily GenAI usage among corporate users.
70 percent of leaked credentials remain active two years on
A new report shows 70 percent of secrets leaked in 2022 remain active today, creating an expanding attack surface that grows more dangerous with each passing day.
The study from GitGuardian also reveals a 25 percent increase in leaked secrets year-on-year, with 23.8 million new credentials detected on public GitHub in 2024 alone.
New ransomware groups account for a quarter of all leaks
The world of cybercrime and ransomware never stands still, and a new report from WithSecure shows more advertised data leaks in the first nine months of this year than all of 2022.
‘New’ groups accounted for about a quarter of all the leaks, with Akira and 8base being particularly prominent sources.
Microsoft data leaks and the importance of open-source intelligence
Interconnected digital technology advances at a rapid pace, and so do the tactics and strategies employed by malicious individuals, criminal groups, and even nation-states. The World Economic Forum predicts global cybercrime will reach $10.5 trillion by 2025, forcing businesses and governments to look for next-generation solutions against emerging digital threats.
Unfortunately, deliberate criminal activity is only part of the challenge in this data-driven era. Costly leaks of sensitive data might happen due to simple human errors -- in September, Microsoft’s data was leaked two times, not only disclosing the company’s plans for the next-gen Xbox but also exposing private employee data. As we already know, at least one of these events happened due to an accidentally misconfigured URL link.
Companies struggle to protect against insider risks
Although more than 70 percent of companies say they have an insider risk management (IRM) program in place, the same companies experienced a year-on-year increase in data loss incidents of 32 percent, according to a new report from Code42 Software.
Based on a survey of 700 cybersecurity leaders, cybersecurity managers and cybersecurity practitioners in the US, conducted by Vanson Bourne, the report shows 71 percent expect data loss from insider events to increase in the next 12 months.
Microsoft is annoyed with security firm that discovered misconfigured server exposing sensitive customer data
Microsoft has admitted that the sensitive data of thousands of customers was exposed last month because of a "misconfigured Microsoft endpoint". The data includes names, email addresses, the content of emails and attachments related to business between a customer and Microsoft or an authorized Microsoft partner.
Security researchers from SOCRadar notified Microsoft about the server misconfiguration back on September 24. The data exposure is part of a series of leaks from public data buckets which the security firm has dubbed BlueBleed. It is described as "one of the largest B2B leaks in recent years" and affects thousands of individuals and companies across over 100 countries. Microsoft has addressed the misconfiguration, but the company is not happy with SOCRadar.
NFT marketplace OpenSea confirms customer data leak
Popular NFT marketplace OpenSea has started issuing emails to its users warning them of a leak of customer data.
OpenSea says that an employee of its email delivery vendor, Customer.io, abused their position to access and share email addresses with an unauthorized third party. The company has not given an indication of the number of users affected by the data breach, but has warned of an increased risk of phishing attacks. With the number of active users of OpenSea reported to be around 2 million -- and this does not include people who have just signed up for a newsletter -- the potential impact is huge.
