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Malaysia sees colossal data breach that may have affected entire population

Technology website Lowyat.net reportedly discovered a huge Malaysian data breach that saw millions of people have their personal data stolen and leaked on the dark web.

The information was apparently taken from multiple Malaysian mobile phone operators, as well as the Malaysian public sector and commercial company websites.

With over 46 million confirmed records breached, this is one monumental data incident.
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Cloud storage error compromises almost 50,000 records belonging to government and major company employees

Australia was recently hit by a huge data breach when a misconfiguration of a cloud storage system reportedly compromised some 50,000 employee records.

This is thought to be the second largest data breach in Australian history.

A number of employee records were compromised for several government departments, including 3,000 from the Department of Finance; 1,470 from the Australian Electoral Commission; and 300 from the National Disability Insurance Agency.
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The Swedish data breach attack and fraud trial

Swedish prosecutors initiated a huge trial after a number of private and public organisations were hacked. Eight people are reportedly standing on trial for the criminal charges that saw at least 40 million Swedish kronor (£3.6 million) stolen or mishandled.

If convicted, the alleged perpetrators could face eight years in jail for their criminal conduct. The exact number of victims has not been confirmed.

The criminal hacker group reportedly hijacked computers and set up social engineering attacks to steal money from a number of organisations and individuals. The Swedish Prison and Probation Service was hit by a breach, along with 20 companies, four banks, a number of law firms, and private individuals also.
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Lessons learned: the university that came under fire for leaking sensitive and confidential data on its students

The University of East Anglia (UEA) was met with anger and disappointment from students and the general public when it was revealed that a member of staff made a horrific error when they sent out a spreadsheet listing named students’ extenuating circumstances. The spreadsheet identified some 40 students by name and student ID numbers, and had their private and confidential information right next to their names.

The spreadsheet showed which students were entitled to things like longer deadlines as their extenuating circumstances included personal matters such as family illnesses and bereavements; mental health problems, including depression; and even sexual assaults.
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Deloitte belittles data breach for affecting “very few” clients

Corporate finance firm Deloitte disclosed a data breach that compromised its internal emailing system, but apparently the breach only affected a “very few” clients.

Those “very few” clients may be not-so impressed with, what appears to be, the company’s attempts to shrug the data breach off as less-than serious just because a small minority of clients were affected.

The company ironically recently rolled out its Cyber Risk Services and even received applause for its growth in cyber intelligence. This kind of breach for a firm of this nature – much like the Equifax breach – is incredibly worrying.
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Governments demanding answers from Uber over recent data breach

Car-sharing company, Uber Technologies, are facing further questioning from governments as they demand answers over alleged violations of multiple laws and regulations stemming from the 2016 Uber data breach that saw a reported 57 million customers and drivers have their personal information exposed.

The failure to disclose the breach is not being accepted by some regulators and lawmakers. A number of lawsuits have been launched against the popular company with allegations of consumer fraud and deceptive business practices.
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Equifax hit by colossal class action after data breach victims suffer financial fraud

According to multiple sources, a significant number of Equifax customers have been targeted by criminals after their personal information was stolen in the massive Equifax breach. Unwilling to take the hit for Equifax’s incompetence and negligence, many are bringing a major class action claim in the U.S. to recover their losses.

We’re representing a large number of people who have come forward to seek compensation for the Equifax breach here in the U.K. as well. We firmly believe that victims should be entitled to compensation in a case of this nature.
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Analysts expect Equifax to spend 2018 dealing with the aftermath of their huge data breach

Equifax’s recovery could be long and arduous after the gigantic data breach that saw around 143 million people have their confidential and personal information exposed.

Following the company’s attempts to clean up the mess, some believe that it may take much longer than expected to recuperate from the fallout of the breach. Unsurprisingly, one of the firm’s first actions was to follow the customary move of firing the CEO (with a cushy multi-million pension to boot) and hire a new one to take charge and sort out the problem. But when new CEO Paulino do Regos Barros Jr. was asked in a recent interview whether consumer data was now encrypted, many cringed when he was stumped and admitted: “I don’t know at this stage”.

Not the best start…
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The Hyatt Hotel breaches – a painful recovery story after multiple data breaches

We hear about data breaches all the time, and we see the reactions by offending companies as they try to provide what may appear to be “politically-drafted” apologies to the thousands of victims they have potentially harmed.

But what about on the long run? How does a company repair the broken trust, confidence and loyalty of their consumers?

For a hotel, the recovery can be even more painful: as we’ll see in the example of the Hyatt Hotel breaches.
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There’s a reported shortage of cybersecurity specialists to protect organisations from breaches

The number of breaches are on the rise and they’re set to continue to rise due to an apparent shortage of experts trained in cybersecurity.

The Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) teamed-up with IT firm Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) to produce a report on cybersecurity. Released one year after their first one, the report depicts a problem that is getting worse.

And we should all be very, very concerned about it…
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