‍In response to the growing number of disparate cyber regulations across its member states, resulting in inconsistent cybersecurity practices, the EU drafted Directive 2022/2555, more commonly known as NIS 2. This sweeping directive, officially in effect in October 2024, aims to ensure a more uniform, proactive approach to cyber risk management across the union in the face of an interdependent market and increasingly costly risk landscape.

Since the rise of the Internet, organizations and individuals have increasingly sought ways to keep their information secure and private. IT has witnessed a changing cyber threat landscape, and businesses have relied more and more on the Internet and data to function. However, the attack landscape widened in the 2010s. With widespread computer worms like Stuxnet in 2010, cybercriminals have gained critical access to organizations through operational technology.

What do Morgan Stanley, Samsung, and a New York credit union all have in common? They aren’t of the same scale, do not cater to the same customer needs, nor do they store similar data. But, if there’s one thing in common between these three organizations, it’s that they’ve all been victims of a data leak. Morgan Stanley, the banking conglomerate, suffered a data leak due to sheer negligence of handling data at rest.

The healthcare sector in the United States has seen a continuous increase in both the frequency and cost of data breaches in the past decade. This is shown by a 61% rise in HIPAA violations from 2019 to 2020, resulting in penalties totaling $13 million for the sector. From 2020 to 2023, the average cost of a single healthcare data breach in the US rose nearly 30%, reaching a whopping $9.3 million.

If you realize that your personal information has been found on the dark web, you may be wondering how this could have happened. Your personal information could have ended up on the dark web through a data breach, a compromised account, a phishing scam or a malware infection. The dark web is part of the internet used by cybercriminals to buy and sell stolen information. Continue reading to learn how to tell if your personal information is on the dark web, how it got there and how to protect your identity.