Data breach: the lack of cyber awareness
by Philippe Funk
Over the recent years, cybersecurity has been a significant focus in the computing world. The primary cause is the digitization of critical infrastructures such as banking, health care, and manufacturing. The cyberworld has been expanding daily with the production of large amounts of digital data, which are preyed upon by cybercriminals. Cybersecurity has been a battle of wits that each party is acting to the best of their abilities. Cybercriminals use sophisticated attacking techniques that bypass the laid down procedures and cybersecurity applications to infect information systems. On the other hand, cybersecurity professionals are developing mechanisms that will combat these threats, including their evolution. In addition, due to the exponential growth of information technology and lack of cyber awareness, cybercriminals can exploit vulnerabilities in both old and new systems.
Additionally, cybersecurity awareness is the best defensive strategy against cyber threats. Letting users of a system understand, how a particular threat or attack is executed is crucial in preventing it. With more systems joining the digital infrastructure, more people should be educated on developing a cyber-conscious culture. Understanding each threat will create a conducive environment to prevent the attack from occurring or minimizing the damage. An example is training system users about the importance of passwords and how they should be kept private at all times. Modern-day technology can bypass weakly encrypted passwords and expose user accounts to unauthorized persons. To overcome this problem, users are advised to create strong passwords, including alphanumeric characters, special characters, and symbols. These passwords are hard to guess. On the development side, they are using a robust encryption algorithm such as Triple Data Encryption Standard and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).
Despite the increased cyber awareness among the users, the threats have not reduced; instead, they have skyrocketed over the last two years (Swinhoe, 2021). Users of a system influence this trend since most do not understand the gravity of cybersecurity until they are affected. In addition, major tech companies such as Facebook and yahoo have faced several cyber-attacks, which affected millions of users (Tunggal, 2020). Also, most systems run through the internet, which was never designed to be safe. These systems also use the same infrastructure to transmit confidential data, which unauthorized parties may access if suitable cybersecurity measures are not implemented. In the modern information age, cyber attackers are using various techniques to breach a system.
Furthermore, breaches occur in two forms, security, and data breach. Security breach involves an attacker or a group of attackers gaining access to a system by bypassing all the protocols implemented by a particular system (Kaspersky, 2020). On the other hand, a data breach occurs if the cybercriminals get away with the information in the system. Confidential information has immense value as the data were stolen by cybercriminals may include names, telephone numbers, and credit card numbers are often sold on the dark web, facilitating identity theft.
Majorly, the cyber attackers use social engineering techniques, which act on human weakness, curiosity, and need to help others. Attackers devise ways that trick users into giving them their credentials. It may take a long for the organization to detect a breach in their systems due to the complex and stealth nature of the tools used by the attackers. While having access to the system, the attackers set up traps in the system that accelerated their breach and exposed more data and systems. This step is done to ensure their access to the system every time they need it will be easier and save them some time. The primary social engineering technique is phishing, which may be in the form of text messages or emails. Users of systems fall into the attackers’ traps and make them reveal the access credentials to the system or make them install malware to the system. The malware installed can offer access to the system to the cybercriminals who can manipulate the data stored in them.
The most recent ransomware attack in the US is on the Colonial Pipeline, which affected the supply of petrol, diesel, and jet fuel on the east coast (Russon, 2021). The major driver of the attack was the remote access to their systems due to the coronavirus pandemic. This attack was also possible due to remote desktop access software such as TeamViewer and Microsoft Remote Desktop. The process of gaining access to the system started with brute-forcing the login credentials until they got one that works. Most attackers start by accessing a small portion of the system and expand their access over time until they reach their goal.
In the 21st century, the amounts of data breaches have increased. Every two minutes, there is a system being breached. Additionally, the cost of data breaches this year is expected to reach $6 trillion annually, which is double from $3 trillion in 2015 (Tunggal, 2020). According to IBM security, within the last five years, the cost has risen due to increased regulations and complicated processes of finding solutions for various cyber-attacks. The cost of the data breach is felt by the organization more than a year after the incidence has occurred. Currently, many systems have been affected by data breaches from different attackers based on different reasons, from monetary value, political gain, and activism (hacktivism). The following are the most recent data breaches around the world.
Firstly, Facebook, a social media giant, has faced several breaches and the latest one occurred on April 03, 2021. Being the largest social media platform, the level of data breaches is severe. The recent data breach in the company exposed the personal data of more than 553 million users, and it included phone numbers, users’ full names, and in some instances, email addresses (Selfkey, 2021). Secondly, BlueKai a company owned by tech giant Oracle that operates in the marketing circles and has the largest bank of web tracking data after the US federal government. The company applies cookies and other tracking technologies to track user’s web activities and sell the data to marketing companies. The breach happened on June 19, 2020, and was there for an unknown period as the tracking data was exposed in the servers without passwords. Over 2 billion records were accessible to everyone, and it included home addresses, names, web browsing activities, and email addresses (Selfkey, 2021). However, Oracle stated that the breach was handled.
Thirdly, Postbank, a bank in South Africa, had a data breach when some employees stole an unencrypted master key that exposed 12 million bank cards that had to be replaced (Selfkey, 2021). The master key granted anyone complete access to the bank system and could change information on any card. The break occurred on June 14, 2020, and it is not clear yet what data was exposed. Fourthly, a UK-based security company, Keepnet Labs, suffered two data breaches in a span of four months (Selfkey, 2021). The first breach occurred in March, while the second one in June 2020. It both occasions, similar databases’ data were exposed. Keepnet Labs acknowledged the breach after the second attack stating it was a third-party service provider. This attack was severe as it shows even security firms can be breached. In addition, the Keepnet Labs breach exposed more than 5 billion records.
Combating data breaches requires cooperation from various stakeholders. Individuals’ awareness should be encouraged with several cybersecurity training and workshops. In addition, applying the same emerging technologies to solve cybersecurity issues such as machine learning and neural networks. Despite the improvement of security procedures in information systems, breaches can also occur. Therefore, it is essential to constantly review the security protocols to accommodate the changing tech world and combat the breaches.
References
Kaspersky. (2020, April 16). What is a security breach? www.kaspersky.com. https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/threats/what-is-a-security-breach
Russon, M. (2021, May 10). US passes emergency waiver over fuel pipeline cyber-attack. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57050690
Selfkey. (2021, April 7). All Data Breaches in 2019–2021 — An Alarming Timeline. selfkey. https://selfkey.org/data-breaches-in-2019/
Swinhoe, D. (2021, January 8). The 15 biggest data breaches of the 21st century. CSO Online. https://www.csoonline.com/article/2130877/the-biggest-data-breaches-of-the-21st-century.html
Tunggal, A. T. (2020, May 21). The 36 biggest data breaches [Updated for 2020]. Upguard. https://www.upguard.com/blog/biggest-data-breaches
Tunggal, A. T. (2020, October 22). What is the cost of a data breach in 2020? Third-Party Risk and Attack Surface Management Software | UpGuard. https://www.upguard.com/blog/cost-of-data-breach
