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Plastk is on a mission to provide a safe environment for our customers when they use our services or products. Our Awareness Campaign will encourage thousands of our customers to understand how Plastk can assist and support them in attaining a hack-free environment for the security and safety of their funds and data with us.
The word "data breach" has taken center stage in the tech world over the past 24 months more than any other phrase.
The previous two years have been flooded with news stories about cybersecurity mishaps, from hacks that compromised healthcare information at UC San Diego Health to intrusions that affected vital infrastructure like the Colonial Pipeline.
However, despite the popularity of the breach-centric news cycle, many regular people might not be familiar with the specifics of a data breach, how it usually starts, and why it happens.
According to IBM, the average time it takes to discover a breach is 287 days, and the average amount of time it takes to stop a violation is 80 days.
Additionally, with 81% of firms witnessing a cyber-attack during COVID, people must be aware of the components of a data breach to protect their data and the data of their coworkers and clients.
In light of that, the following information will help you understand what data breaches are and why they are such a significant problem.
While a data breach may appear to be a complicated concept, it is relatively simple to describe if the technical terms are dropped.
Trend Micro defines a data breach as "an incident where information is stolen or taken from a system without the knowledge or authorization of the system's owner."
The great majority of data breaches result from cyber assaults, in which a cybercriminal acquires unauthorized access to critical system data. Data breaches can also come from systems or human mistakes. Cyber-attacks were responsible for 92% of data breaches in Q1 2022.
Unfortunately, cybercriminals will try to obtain any information they can get, including more transparent sensitive information like social security numbers and credit card numbers and less visible information like past purchase histories.
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Every day, cybercrime becomes more complex. However, a cyber-attack’s techniques do not need to be state-of-the-art or advanced to be particularly effective. Here are a few examples of popular methods followed by cyber criminals:
Phishing is the act of a cybercriminal pretending as a reliable party in order to mislead a victim into providing them access to personal information.
One of the oldest methods in the book for hackers is phishing, which still works today. For instance, for 80% of security incidents and 90% of data breaches, phishing attempts are to blame.
Malware is yet another tried-and-true tactic used by cybercriminals. Malware is malicious software that quietly installs itself on devices and accesses data on a person's or a company's network by tricking users into clicking on fake links and information.
Cybercriminals use password attacks to access networks and sensitive data by "cracking" user passwords and using these credentials to get into the network in question and extract data from it.
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The best way to avoid a data breach is to stop it from occurring in the first place. Ensuring passwords are lengthy and complicated and reporting shady communications are all actions that fall under this category.
Contact your IT department or device provider immediately if you have reason to believe you are the victim of a breach, and then follow any further instructions they provide so they can scan your system, find any problems, and fix them.
Final Thoughts
When data is exposed, it is important to determine how extensive the breach was and whether the systems are safe as soon as possible.
Data should also be categorized to identify whether personal information, such as Social Security numbers, medical data, or financial information, was compromised.
Be Cyber-Smart & stay safe!