The Worst Cybersecurity Breaches of 2018
The more quickly cybersecurity standards develop, the more quickly hackers find new ways to outmaneuver them. Even the largest of corporations are finding some serious difficulty keeping external threats at bay, and state-backed hackers are emboldened by the deep pockets and endless resources available to them. So which entities have been hit the hardest so far by a cybersecurity breach? We’ve listed some of the biggest stories to come out of the IT world in 2018, followed by some helpful tips that could keep your company safe moving forward.
Russian Grid Hacking
Last year, cybersecurity researchers made it known that Russian hackers were finding their way into power companies across the United States. Once the United States government publicly acknowledged that their information systems had been breached during the NotPetya ransomware attacks, it became abundantly clear that there was a full-scale issue that needed to be addressed. Breaches of this magnitude are more than a small business compromising the security of their personal information—when the U.S. government acknowledged that hackers had played a role in the 2016 election, it quickly became one of the defining cybercrimes since the inception of the internet.
Under Armour
Once hackers were able to access the information available on Under Armour’s MyFitnessPal app, they were able to compromise usernames, email addresses, and passwords from the app’s 150 million users. After discovering the intrusion, Under Armour disclosed the attack in under a week, indicating a welcome return to transparency for a large company’s incident response. The data breach didn’t get so far where the hackers were able to access location, credit card numbers, birth dates, and other valuable information. All in all, a pretty excellent response from a company of that size and magnitude. However, there was one major issue after the dust settled—only some user’s passwords were protected by a higher-level function, while a weaker scheme protected the rests. It’s a reminder that no matter how functional a company may be, their cybersecurity services still can leave your network exposed to everyday issues like identity theft.
This is the one you’ve probably seen the most coverage of, apart from the first one on our list. After a political data firm called Cambridge Analytica collected the personal information of 50 million Facebook users via a data-scraping app, the credibility of the company started to seriously waver. Their position as one of the leading organizations in the internet/technology field is still relatively intact, but trust in the company is at an all-time low.
How can you protect your company?
The easiest way to make sure that you don’t fall victim to a cybersecurity breach is to be proactive in protected your network. Cybersecurity isn’t something you can leave until the last minute—the more quickly you take of your valuable information, the more likely you are to be safe from hackers. Take the time to update your applications, and reach out to an experienced IT provider like Hi-Tek today for a comprehensive overhaul of your network security.
