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    Data Breaches

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    mfors050
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    Data Breaches

    Uploaded by

    mfors050
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    assignment on data breaches notes

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    DATA BREACHES

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    assignment on data breaches notes

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    2 views2 pages

    Data Breaches

    Uploaded by

    mfors050
    assignment on data breaches notes

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    DATA BREACHES

    A Data breach is a security breach in which private, confidential or sensitive information is taken by a
    malicious source, and leaked or sold to others on the internet, or even used to take your credit card
    information or try to assume your identity. Data breaches can effect from an individual to a multi-
    million corporation. Even in the day and age we live in, data breaches are still extremely hard to
    defend against.

    Some examples of Data Breaches

    Data breaches are happening all over the world this very second, being one of the most common
    and hardest to stop acts of digital crime. Two of the most famous data breaches are the 2013 Adobe
    data breach and the 2012 Linkedin data breach.

    Adobe:

    In early October 2013, Adobe reported that hackers had breach their security and stolen almost 3
    million encrypted credit card records and login data. A couple of days later Adobe increased the
    estimate for the stolen data to almost 38 million active users. Security blogger Brain Krebs then
    reported that a file had be posted contain 150 MILLION encrypted email and password pairs. Adobe
    was fined $1.1million in legal fees for violating the customers records act and for unfair business
    practices.

    Linkedin:

    In June 2012, Linkedin revealed that 6.5million associated passwords (SHA-1 HASHED) had by stolen
    by hackers and posted to a Russia hacking forum. The full extent of the breach wasn’t identified until
    2016, when the same hacker that had posted the 2013 myspace data breach, was found to be selling
    165Million emails and passwords for linkedin for just 5 bitcoin (Around $2,000 at the time)

    The causes Data Breaches

    Data breaches are caused by many things, some of these are:

    Loss or theft of data or equipment, Inappropriate access controls allowing unauthorised access,
    equipment failure, human error, unforeseen circumstances such as fire or floods, hacking attacks or
    “blagging” offences where information is obtained by deceiving the organisation that holds it. These
    attacks can be targeted attacks or completely random with the help of some sort of malicious
    malware such as Adware or Ransomware.

    Martin Forsyth – 20255850 - pg. 1


    The Effects of Data Breaches on:

    An individual:

    The effects of data breaches are on Individuals and Organisations differ, with Individual hacks having
    a much deeper impact on the victim depending on what was stolen. The hacker would use a
    malicious malware such as Worms, Bots, Viruses or Trojans to gain access to your data, such as E-
    mail, passwords, Personal information and in the worse cases credit card information. These attacks
    on individuals could change their lives completely, stealing thousands of pounds and making the
    victim bankrupt.

    An organisation

    On a larger scale, such as companies or organisation, the hacker would look for a weakness in the
    company’s defences such as a weak firewall or a coding mistake they can use to break into the
    database and steal as much data as possible. This data is possibly the internet’s most valuable
    currency because it can be sold for a lot of money to people wanting to do harm or if there is
    enough, it can be used to make an algorithm for decrypting data. The hacking of an organisation has
    a higher payoff usually, but a much harder security system to breach.

    Unfortunately, data breaches are the most common cyber-attack, happening on average a couple of
    times a day. Some ways to help prevent data breaches include using a password generator to make
    sure you have a strong enough password, don’t use the same password for multiple accounts and
    turn on two-step verification so you know if someone is trying to access your account.

    Martin Forsyth – 20255850 - pg. 2

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