Welcome To The Data Leak Lawyers Blog

ICO study deems website privacy notices are too vague and inadequate

National statistics suggest that 87.9% of all adults in the U.K. use the internet. With some 45.9 million internet users, almost all Britons have access to the internet at work or for leisure.

Most of us carry a smartphone or an internet-connected device and are regularly checking the news, making purchases, watching videos, or logged in to social media. In one day, we may have visited over 20 sites, and the question is: how many of these take information about you and use it without your knowledge or consent? How many websites are truly safe?
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OneLogin’s data breach – Just how serious was it?

There’s a big demand for cyber security globally as the rise of the digital age continues to pave the way for data breaches, leaks and hacks on an almost continual basis.

Yet despite the rise in cyber security that goes hand in hand with the rise of cybercrime, it seems multiple companies and organisations are still failing in their obligations to protect data securely. In recent news, one of San Francisco Bay area’s most established companies has been hacked, potentially affecting thousands worldwide.
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Unprotected database containing 10 million U.S. vehicle owners’ personal details leaked

Approximately 10 million U.S. vehicle owners’ personal data was left exposed after a massive database containing their information was leaked.

Security researchers from Kromtech Security found the unprotected database split into three main sections which is thought to contain ‘critical and sensitive information’. The first section includes names, addresses, home and work numbers, dates of birth, gender and the number of children over 12 years old.

This information is thought to have been extracted from numerous U.S. based car dealerships.
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“Target” to pay $18.5 million settlement for 2013 data breach

Target has agreed to pay out a whopping $18.5 million to U.S customers after a nationwide data breach.

Millions of customers had their personal information compromised back in 2013.

The data breach affected customers’ contact, account, and billing information. It’s believed that a total of 60 million customers were affected.
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The WannaCry hacking’s “accidental hero”

The hack against NHS systems and other organisations across the globe last Friday (12^th May 2017) panicked many across the world, and seriously hampered our NHS’ ability to provide lifesaving care.

It has since emerged that one cyber-security expert managed to kill of the ransomware that was hacking into systems across the globe, and it was practically achieved by accident…
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Cyber-attacks increased by 300% in 2016

Top digital security provider Gemalto released a Breach Level Index (BLI) report on cyber-attacks and compromised data records in 2016. They found a total of 1,792 data breaches last year alone, leading to around 1.378 billion data records being illegally accessed.

Since 2013, over 7 billion data records have reportedly been stolen across the globe. And these are just the ones that have been reported. To break this number down, this equals to:

• 4,501,854 records lost or stolen every day
• 187,577 every hour
• 3,126 every minute
• 52 every second.

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Three’s latest data breach

Three’s recent data breaches have caused a rippling effect for many customers.

The newest of the breaches caused some customers to be without texting and telephone functions on 22^nd April 2017, and also led to some texts going to totally random people rather than the intended recipients.

We have already taken cases on where personal text messages ended up in the inbox of someone totally random, and social media was filled with complaining customers asking for explanations.
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March 2017 saw a 1.5 million spike in lost or stolen medical records

Protenus, a company who protect patient privacy in the U.S., compiles a monthly report on data breaches called the Protenus Breach Barometer (PBR) using data provided by DataBreaches.net. It analyses all breaches reported to the Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) in the U.S or to the media in 2017.

Looking at breaches that compromised healthcare records for the past few months in 2017, January and February seemed relatively quiet with 388,000 and 200,000 patient records respectively. However, when compared to the massive spike of 1,519,521 compromised patient records in March, it makes the previous figures look insignificant.
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“Is the ethical handling of data the new moral responsibility for organisations? Could it help organisations gain any competitive advantage?”

The ethical handling of data has always been the aim of data protection watchdogs and officials. Companies and organisations have the responsibility to handle data securely under the Data Protection Act (DPA), but there is a growing term of ‘ethically handling data’.

And this kind of data handling can be seen to  make a difference.
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1,200 hotel chains worldwide affected by malware data breach

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) originally believed that 12 of their properties were compromised from the data breach, but it now transpires that approximately 1,200 IHG hotels are affected.

On the 19^th April 2017, IHG released new information in regards to the data breach. The information shows that the cyber-attack’s consequences were far worse than originally thought.

The data breach led to the theft of hotel guests credit card information.
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