Alarming Rate of Data Breaches
108.9 Million Accounts Were Hacked in 2022’s 3rd Quarter, with a 70% Increase.
Why do data breaches keep increasing, and what can we do about them?
Purpose of the Article
This post highlight the recent data breaches increasing globally and provide my perspectives as a person who became a target of these breaches. My goal is to create awareness and provide practical tips to improve cybersecurity.
Alarming Rate of Current Data Breaches Globally
According to a recent report by Info Security Group obtained from a study by cybersecurity company Surfshark, “Data Breaches Rise By 70% Globally in Q3 2022 compared to the previous quarter.”
Russia, France, Indonesia, the US, and Spain are the most affected countries. But the rate of data breaches in Indonesia looks striking.
The report mentioned that “from a regulatory standpoint, the new data suggests that in Indonesia, breached user count has grown by a striking 1370% in the last quarter, which alongside previous incidents, has pushed the parliament to ratify the Personal Data Protection Act.”
As I mentioned in a previous story titled Here’s Why I Called a Lifeline First Time in My Life Today, five large organizations were hacked in Australia, where I live, in the last two weeks. My biggest concern was the data breach of a prominent health insurance company, including medical reports.
We haven’t hit the global stats yet, but these recent incidents are alarming nationwide. Millions of innocent citizens are concerned and feel victimized by data breaches, including personally identifiable information.
There isn’t a single day I don’t see reports about data breaches in my cybersecurity news feed. Unfortunately, these incidents adversely affect our economy and the mental health of innocent people.
The Irony of Technology for the Rise of Cybercrimes
The irony is that technology, information, and education are improving, but data breaches are increasing. The more we learn, the more data we seem to lose.
What are we doing wrong?
Users have a critical role in securing their devices by using strong passwords and refraining from risky sites, emails, and calls.
However, those who take all precautions still become victims as their service providers are targeted by cybercrime. Therefore, just user security is not enough. Service providers also need to take adequate measures and increase their cybersecurity intelligence.
Some readers asked me interesting questions after reading my previous article about cybercrime and global scams. These three questions are eye-opening and concern me.
Is there a hidden industry being built to cause suffering in society?
Why can governments and gigantic tech companies with trillion dollars of funds not lower the rate of data breaches?
Why can collective intelligence on the Internet not produce desired results?
I don’t have answers to these questions.
As a victim of recent data breaches, I feel obliged to create awareness of cybercrime and the way to improve cybersecurity.
As a technology professional, I do everything from my end, but the service providers I use get hacked and expose my data to hackers and scammers.
Data in social media is also a big concern. For example, in 2021, 533,000,000 Facebook records were leaked for free on the Internet.
The stolen data included phone numbers, full names, locations, email addresses, and biographical information. Security researchers warned that hackers could use the data to impersonate people and commit fraud.
I also wrote about ransomware in 2021. It seems to be part of the so-called hidden cybercrime industry. Ransomware has become a typical cybersecurity attack. These attacks use malware which is malicious software.
Ransomware has 30 years of history. They get more sophisticated and difficult to defeat with the advance of new technologies, tools, and collaborative efforts of hacking communities. As I documented in a previous story, cybersecurity gets more complex.
FBI and Europol see Ransomware as a significant threat in the digital world. According to Europol’s 2019 report, the Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA), Ransomware remains the main threat from the cyber world.
If our device is infected with Ransomware, it will be unusable. This malicious software can encrypt files in our computers or other devices; thus, we can no longer access them. They even can lock the device at the hardware level, so we cannot even start the machine.
These attacks are not only to business organizations but to individuals too. The attacker aims to collect money to unlock our files and device. They usually use bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies to collect funds because it is a type of anonymous payment method.
However, cybersecurity experts advise not to pay a ransom as they keep coming and asking for more money in the future. Furthermore, paying a ransom is not a guarantee we won’t experience the same problem in the future.
Sensible advice from experts is to reformat our device and restore our files from the backup. Backing up our computer is crucial. Unfortunately, not many people pay attention to this important measure until they hit a serious problem.
Lessons from an Alarming Notice of a Service Provider
Recently a proactive service provider approached me, informing me that they found the password I used on their site on the Internet and asked me to change it urgently.
I was disappointed with the incident but very happy with their intelligence. This is a relatively small company with around 60 employees globally.
When I examined the situation, I noticed that the password I used for this service provider was the same one for another hacked one.
So obviously, hackers found ways to access the password of the hacked site creating additional security risks for other service providers.
Gratefully some innovative and caring service providers are taking measures and going the extra mile to harden security.
Nevertheless, some are exposing us to more risks. Ironically the hacked ones are the established organizations with gigantic technology budgets.
Even though diligent citizens take precautions from their end, controlling the data owned by service providers is beyond their capability.
The most significant risk factor seems to be the emergence of artificial intelligence and software robotics.
The Emergence and Risks of Powerful Artificial Intelligence Bots
In the past, hackers manually attacked specific companies by collaborating with others.
However, recently artificial intelligence tools made it so easy that one hacker might be the equivalent of a million or even a billion hackers of the past, depending on the tools they use.
Creating these bots are getting easier and cheaper, so even an amateur hacker can access very powerful tools with under a hundred dollar via the services of intelligent freelancers, especially in developing countries.
As I pointed out in my previous article, artificial intelligence does not concern me, but the misuse of artificial superintelligence does. Now we are in an era artificial superintelligence has just started forming.
Misuse of artificial intelligence affects data breaches and attempts to corrupt our content needs. The emergence of tools stealing content from the net and creating digital assets for the users of these tools concerns content developers and consumers.
The dark side of the net sells intellectual products like books, designs, videos, music, and training materials at lower prices to consumers using cryptocurrencies.
Some hackers hijack entire writing platforms and distribute content behind paywalls free on the Internet. For example, as I reported in 2020, like many prominent publications, my publication Illumination was cloned. The stories are made available freely accessible to the public.
I reported the situation to Medium and cybersecurity authorities, but they couldn’t make a desirable impact. First, the site was made down, but after a while, offenders appeared again. They are uncontrollable.
Furthermore, plagiarism is also on the rise. Recently a writer (Jennifer Geer) posted an article titled A Medium Writer Is Blatantly Plagiarizing Articles from Top Writers and Other Blogs.
She reported an account of copying other writers’ content overtly and putting it on the paywall of this platform. Editors of my publications detected and reported over 300 plagiarisers on this platform in the last few years.
Conclusions and Takeaways
Data breaches also increase the risks of online scams. The Internet has become a minefield full of dangerous people. They cause suffering to vulnerable citizens, especially the aging population, who are not very tech-savvy. We must be cautious with online proposals, no matter how genuine they sound.
Unfortunately, scams have been a norm on the Internet. Cybercrimes have been very sophisticated. Even governments and large organizations struggle to deal with them effectively.
The more information we provide to authorities timely, the better they can deal with undesirable situations and lower the risks.
Unfortunately, our governments and big corporations cannot effectively deal with unethical people and their intelligence tools mushrooming on the Internet. Millions of innocent citizens unnecessarily suffer from the harm they give.
I learned that if a deal sounds too good to be true, most likely it is. Consider it a scam as default, as advised by scam watchers. Unfortunately, my optimism did not work on the Internet. I recently became skeptical of phone calls and email messages. I stopped answering calls coming from unknown numbers. I receive phishing emails daily and report them.
It will be great to have services like Blockchain to make the net more trustworthy. I believe one day, we will trust the process without trusting the people in our transactions and business interactions.
Before making any business decision, we should always obtain feedback from trusted third parties, friends, and loved ones who might detect our blind spots.
We need to be extra careful with phishing scams leading to ransomware. Modern devices come with ransomware protection. Therefore, we need to turn on this feature.
We also need to keep our devices turned on for automatic security updates. Service providers like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Samsung provide frequent security updates. Unfortunately, hackers don’t settle. They keep creating new algorithms and tools to beat the protection software.
We must turn on multi-factor authentication in our email and social media accounts. From my experience, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and LinkedIn offer multi-factor authentication.
If you run websites or shared resources, pay attention to access controls. Never give more than the required privilege to collaborate. For example, if someone contributes to your website, you can give an author or editor access but not administrator access.
By following these good practices, we might reduce the risk of data breaches and ransomware attacks. Creating a backup of our device is critical for various reasons. Investing in backups will save us money and frustration if we face data breaches.
While taking precautions are crucial, reporting issues to authorities is also critical. Providing as much information as to service providers and security management, and compliance authorities are necessary.
My goal is not to scare my readers but to be more cautious and take necessary actions to lower the risks of cybersecurity attacks and cybercrime.
As I documented in a previous story, It’s Time to Fight Against Organized Scams and cybercrimes collectively.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
Disclaimer: Please note that my posts do not include professional or health advice. I document my reviews, observations, experience, and perspectives only to provide information and create awareness.
I publish my lifestyle, health, and well-being stories on EUPHORIA. My focus is on metabolic, cellular, mitochondrial, and mental health. Here is my collection of Insightful Life Lessons from Personal Stories.
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