Hobby Lobby’s mistakes pack a high cost, Australia’s Channel 9 News gets knocked off the air by a cyberattack, production at Sierra Wireless gets held up by ransomware, and a look at what the FBI IC3 report means for your business.
Retail boutique Fat Face has disclosed that it experienced a data breach in January. According to the shop a third party accessed data, probably through malware, and obtained some employee and customer information. The incident is still under review.
Risk to Business: 1.802 = Severe
The organization says that some employee and customer information was exposed, including names, addresses, email addresses and the last four digits of credit card numbers, plus the expiration dates. Customers should be alert for fraud attempts.
Customers Impacted: Unknown
How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business: Failure to keep sensitive data secure is even more costly when your industry or location means you’ll incur regulatory penalties on top of everything else.
University of Northampton(UON): Institution of Higher Learning
Risk to Business: 2.055 = Severe
Communications and some learning tools were knocked offline at UON after a cyberattack shut down essential systems. No data is reported stolen, and authorities have been informed. Officials say that service is beating slowly but steadily restored.
Individual Impact: No sensitive personal or financial information was announced as compromised in this incident, but the investigation is ongoing.
Customers Impacted: LOREM IPSUM
How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business: It’s no longer acceptable to just survive a cyberattack by shutting down systems Clients expert businesses to keep on trucking no matter what.
The personal and vehicle details of millions of Dutch car owners were posted for sale on a well-known cybercrime forum, snatched from automotive services company RDC. The threat actor behind the forum ad claims to be in possession of an RDC database with 7.3 million entries. 2.3 million of those records also come complete with email addresses and other PII.
Risk to Business: 1.703 = Severe
Both business clients and private car owners were impacted with data including names, home addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, but also vehicle registration numbers, car makes & models, and license plates exposed.
Customers Impacted: 7.3 million
How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business: Every time your company does business with another company, your information is at risk and their failure to keep your information safe can come back to haunt you when you least expect it.
In an especially audacious attack, hackers disrupted broadcast operations at Channel Nine, preventing the station from transmitting its popular Sunday morning news program, which runs from 7:00 am to 1:00 pm out of studios in Sidney as well as its 5 pm evening news broadcast. The 6 pm broadcast was facilitated by studios in Melbourne. The company acted quickly to restore operations.
Individual Impact: No sensitive personal or financial information was declared as compromised immediately but the investigation is ongoing and more details may emerge.
Customers Impacted: Unknown
How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business: Hackers are bold and dangerous One security failure can have big consequences for operations, causing delays and dissatisfaction for clients.
1 – 1.5 = Extreme Risk
1.51 – 2.49 = Severe Risk
2.5 – 3 = Moderate Risk
Risk scores for The Week in Breach are calculated using a formula that considers a wide range of factors related to the assessed breach.
Huge Cybercrime Numbers Provide Food for Thought
The recent release of the FBI’s annual IC3 Internet Crime Report draws attention to the surge in cybercrime that businesses have seen in the last year – more than 80% of businesses reported seeing an increase in cyberattacks in 2020. That means that it’s a smart move to put in a little time to review your cybersecurity suite now and add extra protection against some nasty threats if needed.
2020’s increase in cybercrime was hefty across the board, including an enormous increase in phishing of more than 600%. Phishing is responsible for Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)’s top reported scam of 2020: business email compromise. The FBI notched 19,369 business email compromise scams in 2020 with a painful adjusted loss of approximately $1.8 billion.
Ransomware defense should also be high on your priority list. This menace isn’t slowing down, and just one incident can devastate your business. Two in five small or medium businesses were hit with ransomware in 2020. IC3 reports that it received 2,474 complaints identified as ransomware with adjusted losses of over $29.1 million.
The FBI received 791,790 cybercrime complaints in 2020 that resulted in a loss of over $4.2 billion and that’s 300,000 more than 2019. That’s an astounding 69% increase in reported cybercrime – and most cybercrime goes unreported.
Make sure that your business doesn’t end up in next year’s report by taking the time to review your protection and bolster it where you can. If your budget is a limitation, look for multifunctional solutions that can check off many security boxes at once.
Cybercrime is continuing its upward trend in 2021. Take the time to review your security coverage now and make smart updates that protect your business from the rising tide of cybercrime.
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