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.

Because online shopping is so important to us now, keeping payment information safe is very important. Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) was created to protect cardholder information that is private and to stop fraud. PCI DSS must be followed by any organization that handles, saves, or sends cardholder data. A Very Important Step: The PCI Compliance Test Organizations must go through a lot of tests and evaluations to show that they follow PCI DSS.

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.