By Dave McKay | July 11, 2020
2020 Is Shaping Up - Badly
Six months in and 2020 is on track to set a new data breach record.
Healthcare, technology, software, social media and more have all been targeted by cybercriminals, reaping about 16 billion personal records.
What’s Going On?
It’s partly due to the coronavirus pandemic which gave cybercriminals new ways to mask threats. Phishing scams and social engineering were the most common threats.
Online dating
Online dating apps always seem to be built with security as an after thought, nothing like the security by design principle we’re all supposed to be adopting. MobiFriends was attacked in May, a breach of nearly 3.7 million records. Another bundle of dating apps leaked 845GB of sensitive data, with over 20 million personal records.
Hospitality and travel industry
Marriott confirmed a breach in Marchof 5.2 million guests.The attackers harvested travel information, names, addresses and loyalty member data.
EasyJet suffered a breach in May 19 that exposed 9 million personal records, including 2,208 credit cards.
Telecommunications
A Virgin Media database was left misconfigured and therefore unsecure, exposing the PII 900,000 customers.
Healthcare
The healthcare industry has suffered badly this year. More than 100 cyber incidents were reported in the first quarter of 2020, affecting more than 2.5 million individuals.
Straight To The Dark Web
The personal records and credit card numbers are sold on the Dark Web, where medical records in particular are highly sought after.
Of course, these infractions will eventually become enforcements from the Information Commissioner’s Office or the appropriate Supervisory Authority in the countries in questions.
That hardly helps the affected data subjects though.
Source: Security boulevard