A number of high-profile data breaches have resulted directly from misconfigured permissions or unpatched vulnerabilities. For instance, the 2017 Equifax breach was the result of exploiting an unpatched flaw in Apache Struts allowing remote code execution. More recently, the Capital One breach last year stemmed from a misconfigured web application firewall. Verizon’s 2020 DBIR reported that only hacking was more prevalent than misconfiguration errors as the culprit of data breaches.

It seems like every day there’s a new incident of customer data exposure. Credit card and bank account numbers; medical records; personally identifiable information (PII) such as address, phone number, or SSN— just about every aspect of social interaction has an informational counterpart, and the social access this information provides to third parties gives many people the feeling that their privacy has been severely violated when it’s exposed.

As of June 2020, more than 3.2 million consumer records were exposed in the 10 biggest data breaches this year. Eight of the ten largest breaches occurred at healthcare or medical organizations, meaning patient information in addition to PII was likely acquired by hackers. Data loss prevention (DLP) is an ever-changing practice, with new security policies and information security standards evolving to keep up with the threat of online hackers.

Not too long ago, the desktop computer was the primary computing device for enterprise employees. With the rise of mobile endpoints like smartphones, laptops and tablets, employees are connecting to corporate networks from a wide variety of places and devices. Today, especially with the popularity of the WFH (work from home) model, managing the multitude of mobile devices is more complicated than ever before. The statistics tell a sobering tale.

The 2020 Cost of Data Breach report from IBM and the Ponemon is out. It provides a detailed analysis of causes, costs and controls that appeared in their sampling of data breaches. The report is full of data, and the website allows you to interact with its information so that you can do your own analysis and/or dig into aspects relevant to you and your industry.

Data breaches are growing in frequency and intensity amidst the recent Coronavirus pandemic, having increased by nearly 273% in the first quarter compared to the same time frame last year. In fact, 2020 may very well be remembered as the year when cybersecurity became a business problem rather than a technology issue. The driving factor here is the recent shift in workforce culture. More and more organizations are now setting up remote working teams.

Last year, Capital One showed the world why data governance is so important when it was the victim of a massive data breach that exposed the personal data of 106 million customers. It is still one of the biggest hacks ever recorded, and the company has now been fined $80 million by banking regulators. A “what’s in your wallet” meme would work great here, but let’s keep this classy.

VPN stands for virtual private network. It allows you to hide your public IP address and browse privately on the internet without being tracked or watched. Basically, a VPN offers you a thick layer of privacy when using your home Wi-Fi or public. These networks were originally designed for big businesses and governments that wanted to keep their activities secret and secure.

The Managed Threat Detection and Response (MTDR) analyst team was notified of multiple logins from different countries. With the shift to a more remote workforce, multiple logins from different locations is not uncommon, but the team discovered the potentially compromised account belonged to a third-party and immediately took action. Every year businesses lose millions due to data breaches caused by third parties.