Data breaches are becoming more and more common, and some of the most recent data breaches have been the largest on record.

Over the past 10 years, there have been 300 data breaches involving the theft of 100,000 or more records.

Data breaches exposed 49.8 million records in the last month alone.

In 2020, there were 3,950 confirmed data breaches. It is likely that the actual number of breaches is much higher, due to companies hiding breaches to avoid the subsequent reputational damage they would suffer.

How do data breaches occur?

A data breach occurs when a cybercriminal infiltrates a data source and extracts confidential information. This can be done by accessing a computer or network to steal local files or by bypassing network security remotely. While most data breaches are attributed to hacking or malware attacks, other breach methods include insider leaks, payment card fraud, loss or theft of a physical hard drive of files, and human error.

What are the most common causes of data breaches?

The most common cyber attacks that cause data breaches are:

Malware

Malware is a term that describes any program or code that harmfully enters systems. Malware is designed to infect your computer, and while it does not damage the physical hardware of systems, it can steal, encrypt or hijack computer functions.

Malware can penetrate your computer if you navigated hacked websites, download infected files, or open links & documents in malevolent emails.

Phishing

Phishing scams are one of the most common ways hackers gain access to sensitive or confidential information. Phishing involves sending fraudulent emails that appear to be from a reputable company, with the goal of deceiving recipients into either clicking on a malicious link or downloading an infected attachment, usually with the intent of stealing financial or confidential information.

Denial of Service (DoS)

Denial of Service is a cyber attack in which the attack seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting the services of a host connected to the internet. It is typically accomplished by flooding the targeted machine or resource with superfluous requests in an attempt to overload systems and prevent some or all legitimate requests from being fulfilled.

Hacker Group Anonymous recently performed a DoS attack on the Russian Government, causing their official website to be unavailable for several days.

What was the largest data breach ever?

The largest ever data breach is held by Yahoo, with three billion compromised accounts in a single cyber-attack.

How much does a data breach cost?

In 2020, the average total cost of a single data breach is £3.25 million. This number varies depending on the size of the data breach, but often efforts to repair attacks and recover details dramatically increase the costs of recovering from an attack.

Now that you’ve discovered if any of your details have been breached, take part in our free vulnerability assessment for your organisation.

Email us at info@tecsec.co.uk, or call 0114 223 8000 to arrange your assessment.