Note: This report was previously published in InfoWorld When developing the recently announced JFrog Advanced Security, our Research team decided to try out its new “Secrets Detection” feature. Our goal was to test our vulnerability detection on as much real world data as possible, to make sure we eliminate false positives and catch any bugs in our code.

An identity breach is an identity-based impersonation attack in which a hacker exploits vulnerabilities to obtain PII (personally identifiable information), contact information, credit card numbers, and important credentials like passwords and usernames to commit identity theft, identity fraud, or other cybercrimes without the victim’s knowledge. Using stolen information from a data breach, cybercriminals may attempt to steal classified information or money from the victim.

As the number of high-profile cyberattacks and data breaches has increased in recent years, more companies have made investments to better secure their systems and develop incident response plans. While these are essential concerns, a firm’s obligations don’t simply end when a threat is removed from the network and they are able to resume normal operations. They must also notify those whose data may have been impacted by the breach.

Yesterday, TechCrunch broke a story about pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, which experienced a leak affecting sensitive patient data. We think this incident is worth reviewing to learn more about how data exfiltration risk is distributed across the entirety of an organization’s SaaS infrastructure.

On November 1st, Dropbox disclosed a security breach where the attackers stole over 130 code repositories after gaining access to one of the employee’s GitHub accounts using the stolen credentials of that employee via a well-designed phishing attack.

Every year has been an unfortunate year for online privacy for the past few years. Data breaches and social engineering attacks are at an all-time high, and the concept of online data privacy is challenged to its core, with millions of users being affected every month. IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report highlighted that the average data breach cost increased 2.6%, from USD 4.24 million in 2021 to USD 4.35 million in 2022.

The Optus data breach was the second-largest data breach in Australia. 9.8 million current and former Optus customers were impacted by the event, with 2.1 million suffering compromises of highly-sensitive government identification information, like driver’s license numbers and passport numbers. In other words, this single cybersecurity incident has placed almost half of the Australian population at risk of identity theft scams and financial fraud.

The Optus data breach occurred through an unprotected and publically exposed API. This API didn’t require user authentication before facilitating a connection. A lack of an authentication policy meant anyone that discovered the API on the internet could connect to it without submitting a username or password.

It’s rare that a week goes by without at least one data breach making the news. Criminals are targeting companies of all sizes to see if they can slip past their digital defenses and steal confidential data.

Read also: Apple fixes yet another iOS zero-day, Iranian atomic energy agency hit by hackers, and more.