A data breach is defined as any stolen or hijacked electronic information. Data breaches are one of the largest company risks for businesses of any size in 2022. If you’re online, you’re at risk and most companies out there are underprepared for the real danger.
A data breach can see the private information of millions of people out in the open. Data breaches can also be responsible for leaking employee personal data or company secrets.
Data breaches, for some companies, can even be attributed to direct corporate espionage or ransomware, where data is stolen and sold back at a price.
Serious data breaches can happen to anyone, from a local SME to a national power grid supplier.
Just how much potential trouble is the internet in?
Let’s look at the top 3 data breaches of 2022 (so far).
The Experian Hack
The Experian Hack details an early 2022 cyber incident that involved the exposure of more than 20 million people’s personal information. Hackers hacked one of the world’s most widely used credit bureaus 7– and made off with personal information such as social security numbers, credit scores, contact details and home addresses.
The goal of the hack was presumed to be selling the information to scam databases for further exploitation.
An internal threat or a compromised system are two of the given theories for how the data breach took place.
The Power Grid Auction
In South Africa, a cyber incident in early 2022 infiltrated the national power grid supplier, Eskom.
Hackers gained access to the most essential company data, including how much power goes to which part of the country, and reports say that the goal of the hack was to auction the information off to the highest bidder.
If successful, the hackers would gain almost complete control of the power grid, a little too much like the movie Hackers.
The Google Smartwatch
To keep up with what’s going on in the rest of the tech world, Google announced its plans to create a new smartwatch far before the year 2022. However, by April 2022 it was almost time for the watch to be released, until the most low-tech data breach of the year so far messed up the corporate plan.
According to reports, a Google employee had gone for a drink at a bar.
This would have been fine, except he left the plans for Google’s new watch behind.
When someone found it, they posted it on the internet almost immediately.
This proves that a data breach can happen to one of the largest tech companies in the world, in the lowest possible tech way.
If you don’t want your data breached, don’t leave it lying around online or anywhere else.