Despite being very careful when using the internet, you just might become the target for hackers who grab a hold of your personal and financial data online, after exposing it through data breach scams.
They can go as far as taking your sensitive credentials and making use of the data from previous breaching scams and putting them all in one place so they’re simpler to use during specific attacks.
As mentioned in a report by Cybernews, the same thing took place when a massive breaching attempt, dubbed as the world’s biggest cyberattack arose, entailing 26 billion records from so many leaks of the past. The recent investigation was done through top cybercrime researchers including Bob Dyachenko who exposed all the records that became victims during the attack and it was a lot to handle for some.
While we can or may never find the real owner of the crime, researchers did mention how they feel it’s a trained and expert hacker or maybe even a data broker who works with a huge figure of data. And it’s not something that anyone or everyone can do.
We agree that this attempt does not entail new data, but many users are being warned about how they could be next in line due to the growing threats arising center stage. So which brands impacted the most is a question on many people’s minds. We’ve listed them down for you below in terms of the greatest number of users exposed.
The top five featured the likes of Tencent, Weibo, MySpace, Twitter, and Wattpad. On the other hand, it was NetEase, Deezer, LinkedIn, AdultFriendFinder, and Zynga who completed the top ten list. More were also there and it’s amazing to see some of the world’s biggest platforms become affected by this scam online.
Jonathan Roizin, Co-Founder and CEO of Flow Security, believes that "this leak represents a critical error in the current data security approach: not tracking data’s movements in runtime". In an email to DIW he explained that, "As decentralized data ownership increases, data is constantly being left exposed which intensifies the risk for a leak (exactly like this one)." Adding further, "Without the ability to find and remediate data across all vulnerable locations in real-time, companies will continue to experience leaks of this, and possibly greater, proportions."
Other than these names, we see names from leading government firms based in America, Germany, Brazil, Turkey, the Phillippines, and even other top nations.
In case you’re wondering what hackers do with all the data accumulated from millions of accounts, well, it’s quite simple.
So much data, despite being old, could easily be used in plenty of nefarious ways online that entail identity theft, phishing attacks, cyberattacks, and also unauthorized access to people’s sensitive and personal accounts as per all the security researchers that used it.
One of the biggest risks in this ordeal is the reusing of passwords. So when you reuse those across different sites, the hackers attain credentials for a single account and use them to access many other accounts too. This is one reason why users should make use of difficult and complex passcodes to stay safe and steer clear of all dangers online.
While you can use different passcodes online, the best password managers could also do this and securely store all passwords in a single location.
While we’ve seen plenty of breaching attempts take center stage online, this just might be one of those big ones that were recorded to date. For example, Cybernews mentioned one incident that had close to 3.2 billion records online.
So how do users check if they were impacted or not? This can be done through data leak checkers that ensure users' lives are so much simpler than before. Thankfully, since a lot of the data pertains to old data, new users are less at risk but you do need to be wary of the behavior taking center stage online. So get more cautious of your surroundings to rid of phishing scams and ensure online accounts don’t have signs linked to fraud or any other data that might be out of place.
Experts do recommend installing good antivirus software (or updating that comes builtin) that may ensure people remain safe at all times from various malware and attacks. This way, not a lot can be done when personal or financial data gets exposed online through means like stolen identity and beyond.
So as more and more data gets produced daily, huge data leaks will tend to become more common now than before. Staying vigilant and ensuring the right safeguards are in place can really do wonders to prevent users from getting targeted.
Read next: Meta Rolls Out Detailed Strategy On How It Plans To Combat New EU Competition Rules
They can go as far as taking your sensitive credentials and making use of the data from previous breaching scams and putting them all in one place so they’re simpler to use during specific attacks.
As mentioned in a report by Cybernews, the same thing took place when a massive breaching attempt, dubbed as the world’s biggest cyberattack arose, entailing 26 billion records from so many leaks of the past. The recent investigation was done through top cybercrime researchers including Bob Dyachenko who exposed all the records that became victims during the attack and it was a lot to handle for some.
While we can or may never find the real owner of the crime, researchers did mention how they feel it’s a trained and expert hacker or maybe even a data broker who works with a huge figure of data. And it’s not something that anyone or everyone can do.
We agree that this attempt does not entail new data, but many users are being warned about how they could be next in line due to the growing threats arising center stage. So which brands impacted the most is a question on many people’s minds. We’ve listed them down for you below in terms of the greatest number of users exposed.
The top five featured the likes of Tencent, Weibo, MySpace, Twitter, and Wattpad. On the other hand, it was NetEase, Deezer, LinkedIn, AdultFriendFinder, and Zynga who completed the top ten list. More were also there and it’s amazing to see some of the world’s biggest platforms become affected by this scam online.
Jonathan Roizin, Co-Founder and CEO of Flow Security, believes that "this leak represents a critical error in the current data security approach: not tracking data’s movements in runtime". In an email to DIW he explained that, "As decentralized data ownership increases, data is constantly being left exposed which intensifies the risk for a leak (exactly like this one)." Adding further, "Without the ability to find and remediate data across all vulnerable locations in real-time, companies will continue to experience leaks of this, and possibly greater, proportions."
Other than these names, we see names from leading government firms based in America, Germany, Brazil, Turkey, the Phillippines, and even other top nations.
In case you’re wondering what hackers do with all the data accumulated from millions of accounts, well, it’s quite simple.
So much data, despite being old, could easily be used in plenty of nefarious ways online that entail identity theft, phishing attacks, cyberattacks, and also unauthorized access to people’s sensitive and personal accounts as per all the security researchers that used it.
One of the biggest risks in this ordeal is the reusing of passwords. So when you reuse those across different sites, the hackers attain credentials for a single account and use them to access many other accounts too. This is one reason why users should make use of difficult and complex passcodes to stay safe and steer clear of all dangers online.
While you can use different passcodes online, the best password managers could also do this and securely store all passwords in a single location.
While we’ve seen plenty of breaching attempts take center stage online, this just might be one of those big ones that were recorded to date. For example, Cybernews mentioned one incident that had close to 3.2 billion records online.
So how do users check if they were impacted or not? This can be done through data leak checkers that ensure users' lives are so much simpler than before. Thankfully, since a lot of the data pertains to old data, new users are less at risk but you do need to be wary of the behavior taking center stage online. So get more cautious of your surroundings to rid of phishing scams and ensure online accounts don’t have signs linked to fraud or any other data that might be out of place.
Experts do recommend installing good antivirus software (or updating that comes builtin) that may ensure people remain safe at all times from various malware and attacks. This way, not a lot can be done when personal or financial data gets exposed online through means like stolen identity and beyond.
So as more and more data gets produced daily, huge data leaks will tend to become more common now than before. Staying vigilant and ensuring the right safeguards are in place can really do wonders to prevent users from getting targeted.
Read next: Meta Rolls Out Detailed Strategy On How It Plans To Combat New EU Competition Rules
