Governments, restaurants, cybersecurity firms and even
baseball teams made the cyberattack headlines this past June. The 10
data breaches below are recent examples of what to do (take any and all
security precautions), what not to do (open phishy email
attachments or recycle passwords) and just how bad a breach can be
(OPM).
Know of a data breach we missed? Add it in
the comments below.
- Employees that opened a phishing email attachment
at the Japan Pension Service unleashed a
virus that claimed the personal data of 1.25 million people. The pension IDs
and names of all were stolen; the addresses and birth dates of some were also
compromised.
- Anand Prakash hacked into Indian-based
restaurant search engine Zomato, accessing personal data
such as private Instagram photos, to prove it could be done. Zomato fixed the
glitch upon learning about it from Prakash, preventing any (known) wrongdoing.
- Internal Revenue Commissioner John Koskinen of
the United States Internal Revenue Service
testified in response to hackers accessing the tax information of 104,000
Americans. He shared that the breach was largely attributed to a lack of
multifactor authentication, systems updates and security upgrades—all of which
had been suggested prior to the attack.
- The (most likely) Chinese breach of the Office of Personnel Management has already been labeled
one of the worst in United States history. The personnel files and background
check information of up to 18 million current and former federal government
employees and contractors were compromised, revealing a nearly endless supply
of personal information: social security numbers, addresses, arrest and
financial records, mental illness history, drug and alcohol use and more. If
you’re hoping for a silver lining, here it is: the US has finally committed to
using https encryption by default for all federal websites by the end of 2016.
- Hackers used malware to steal credit card
information over a 4 month period from customers at Manhattan’s Eataly. Breaches on small retailers
have become a common occurrence, as the security tends to be relatively easy to
penetrate, and sometimes serve as a test ground before hacking larger entities.
Point of sale breaches have increasingly become an issue in North America, where chip technology has yet to catch up with the rest of the
world.
- Kaspersky Lab, the cybersecurity
powerhouse, was breached by hackers in an attempt to learn how to infiltrate systems more
surreptitiously. The attack showed that even Kaspersky is penetrable, but also
that the company has action steps for such an event. A detailed report addressed
user concerns: “Kaspersky Lab is confident that its clients and
partners are safe and that there is no impact on the company’s products,
technologies and services.”
- Personal details in UK-based Brabantia’s customer database were
compromised; the company assured customers that financial data such as banking
and credit card numbers were stored by an external company and, therefore,
safe.
- User information of password service LastPass was compromised, if not
breached, in a much-needed reminder that proper precautions prevent major
debacles. In the words of LastPass: “Our
security and processes worked as designed, and customer data was, and is,
protected.”
- Missing Link Networks Inc.,
a
credit card processor and point-of-sale vendor most closely associated
with California wineries revealed that customer names, credit and debit
card numbers, billing
addresses and dates of birth were compromised for all transactions
processed in
April 2015. The breach motivated Missing Link Networks to move to a
token
system to avoid storing credit card numbers in the future.
- Major League Baseball’s Houston Astros were breached by the St. Louis Cardinals; compromised is private
internal database information regarding trades, statistics and scouting
reports. The key to the success of this unsophisticated breach? General Manager
Jeff Luhnow and other Cardinals-turned-Astros used the same password in both offices.
No comments:
Post a Comment