Welcome To The Data Leak Lawyers Blog
We focus on the latest news surrounding data breaches, leaks and hacks plus daily internet security articles.
We focus on the latest news surrounding data breaches, leaks and hacks plus daily internet security articles.
Ransomware attacks are still on the rise, and we all have every reason to be very worried about the increasing trends we’re seeing.
According to at least one piece of recent research, 2018 has already seen double the rate of ransomware attacks so far, but what’s equally as concerning is that the attacks are changing tact to go for bigger targets to demand higher ransoms, and the hackers are enjoying success.
It’s a sign of the times, and we all need to be very careful to make sure we protect ourselves from the growing risks of ransomware attacks.
There are suggestions that mobile phone data protection is lagging behind as a result of security immaturity and attitudes toward mobile safety.
The smartphone industry in particular has grown exponentially in recent years, and with more than half of the internet’s traffic thought to be on mobile devices, and with mobile apps springing up all the time, some experts are concerned at the lack of maturity mobile phone data protection has when compared to desktop protection.
Does security and attitudes need to change?
Recent study findings suggest that healthcare cybersecurity is still a cause for concern, with the healthcare industry itself a prime target for cybercriminals.
Underfunding and a lack of understanding by bosses means there are still huge gaps and vulnerabilities when it comes to healthcare cybersecurity, putting countless people’s private and sensitive medical data at risk of leaks and hacks.
It’s a simple case of pace: the healthcare industry doesn’t appear to be able to keep up to speed with the pace of the cybercriminals who are targeting them.
European regulators have rightly ordered big changes after the monumental Yahoo data breach that was revealed in 2016, having taken place two years earlier.
Some 500 million Yahoo user accounts were hacked, including around 39m European users; the largest ever single data breach to affect Europe. Information hacked in the Yahoo data breach included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, birth dates and passwords.
European regulators have demanded big changes be made to prevent a future incident of this size and nature ever happening again.
The recent Booking.com WhatsApp and text fraud operation showed precisely what criminals can do with enough data at their disposal.
According to the media reports in the aftermath of the Booking.com WhatsApp and text issue, criminals were looking to reap hundreds of thousands of pounds in ill-gotten gains by duping people into thinking they were Booking.com by using personalised messages that were said to have looked genuine, and included personal data.
Some people reportedly fell for the scam and lost money as a result, and we understand that Booking.com has committed to compensating victims.
As remote working continues to grow in popularity, adding massive flexibility for organisations, mobile working data breach worries are not being properly addressed.
According to a recent study, almost all (95pc) of businesses still struggle to secure mobile working, leaving both employees and the organisation on the whole at risk of mobile working data breaches. The study also said that one-third of businesses have suffered a data breach or a data loss as a result of mobile working, with one-in-five suggesting that mobile workers themselves simply don’t care about security. This is particularly shocking.
The information gleaned from this study is hugely concerning.
As the technology and use of unmanned aerial vehicles continues to grow, drone jacking could be the next big data breach risk.
Drones are already used in a number of industries: engineers use them for surveillance; insurance companies reportedly use them for monitoring; and Amazon want to use them to deliver packages to the doorsteps of homes around the world.
Our concerns are simple: if organisations can’t even get data protection right on a systems and software level, how are they going to get it right when it comes to potentially dangerous drones?
The MyHeritage data breach was a massive wake-up call about the dangers of providing personal and sensitive data to companies, with some 92m users affected by the breach.
When we have the ability to provide companies like MyHeritage with DNA information, which is used together with personal and sensitive information and a wealth of data about family histories, the massive MyHeritage data breach is a monumental wake-up call.
The family networking and genealogy site discovered the data breach last month, which reportedly took place in October last year.
Charity data breach incidents appear to be on the rise, and there are a number of reasons as to why they can be an easy target for hackers, and why they may fall foul of data laws more easily than some other organisations.
According to recent figures, there were 59 charity data breach incidents reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) between January and March in 2018. This is a 69pc rise on the previous year’s period.
Although the figures appear to be in-line with rises seen in some other sectors, which may be due to the greater awareness of data breach laws given the new GDPR, the figures cannot be ignored.
Last year’s WannaCry attack was a lucky escape, and the government is quite rightfully being urged to learn lessons from the encounter. We are almost a year on from the day that saw around one-third of all NHS Trusts in England disrupted by the malware attack that specifically targeted older (and therefore weaker) systems and servers.
The attack saw hundreds of other NHS organisations – including almost 600 GPs – infected during the attack, and some 20,000 hospital appointments and operations were cancelled.
Ultimately, the WannaCry attack was simple malware that still managed to cripple the NHS. It was a lucky escape, and future attacks involving medical data could be far, far worse.
read more
EasyJet admits data of nine million hacked
British Airways data breach: How to claim up to £6,000 compensation
Are you owed £5,000 for the Virgin Media data breach?
Virgin Media faces £4.5 BILLION in compensation payouts
BA customers given final deadline to claim compensation for data breach
Shoppers slam Morrisons after loyalty points stolen
Half a million customers can sue BA over huge data breach
Lawyers accuse BA of 'swerving responsibility' for data breach
The biggest data breaches of 2020
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