Even though 2015 is still the record year for data breaches, it seems 2016 may surpass 2015’s numbers. In 2015, there were exactly 3,930 data breaches reported. In the first quarter of 2016, data breaches were 6% higher than in the previous year during the same time frame. By mid-April, this number had risen to 10%.
In the beginning of May 2016, the world witnesses what it can be deemed as the largest data breach in history when hackers got accessed to 270 million e-mails of Google and Yahoo providers. This data breached was almost twice as large as Ebay’s data breach – which was the previous record holder with information of around 145 million users being compromised. Russia’s most popular e-mail service “Mail.ru” has been the main victim with almost all e-mails hacked and passwords changed.
In the list of the largest data breaches in 2016 are also the Bangladesh Central Bank, which lost $81 million due to this, Verizon, and the University of Central Florida among other institutions. Verizon has been highly criticized for not being good enough at preventing cyber-security attacks on its systems. Verizon’s 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report was highly condemned by researchers who found that the company had not been rigorous enough in its security practices.
With so many companies suffering from cyber-security attacks since the beginning of the year, 2016 may become the year with the most data breaches in history.
2016 data breaches have had noticeable trends so far. First of all health records became a “hot” asset for hackers. 21st Century Oncology had 2,200,000 million records stolen while Centene had 950,000. Healthcare hacking has become kind of an epidemic issue among healthcare providers. Interestingly enough, healthcare data is more profitable for hackers than credit card information. In fact, they can sell a single healthcare profile for around $10 in the black market compared to a $0.5-$1.0 they can get for credit card info. The reason for this is because once the criminal knows this data, he can order expensive medications and then resell them to cash in huge profits. In regards to insurance companies, they can file fake claims and also earn lots of money. Additionally, people can pass themselves as the owners of the profiles and get medical services for free. While financial institutions are very conscious about their online security policies and practices, healthcare institutions don’t put too much attention to it. This makes healthcare institutions the “sweetest candy in the store” for hackers.
Another trend evidenced in 2016 is that even cyber-security companies aren’t protected. Verizon which offers cyber-security services had 1,500,000 million records stolen in March. In late March, the company noticed the flaw in its system but it was too late as hackers were already in possession of Verizon’s consumers’ information. Other cyber-security companies that were affected by this illegal practice were OpSec Security, BitDefender, and Juniper among others.
Hackers are also taking advantage of tax season. By passing themselves as top executives, hackers convinced employees of several companies to give them all needed information to file tax returns. Snapchat employees were affected along with workers of other private and public companies.
In general, there is an upward trend for data breaches in 2016. These Data breaches can damage a company’s reputation and lower its stock value. CFD trading is a way of investing that can be used to profit from either the increase or decrease in price of a particular stock. It can also be used to speculate on the prices of other assets such as currencies, commodities, etc. CMC Markets offers an innovative platform that provides investors with all tools they need to trade CFDs.
