Cybercrime never sleeps
With the data breaches that happened at five major U.S. companies, colleges, and organizations., here’s a brief compiling of the stolen data.
First, let’s tackle the company DCHA. Also known as D.C. Housing Authority that’s responsible for providing housing to lower- and middle-class families in Washington, D.C., DCHA reported that attackers left an anonymous message in their network after encrypting their systems followed by extracting thousands of individuals’ health, assistive, and financial records. After seizing this valuable information, they’d written if DCHA insisted on using better cybersecurity, their clientele wouldn’t be left in their current position.
AssuranceAmerica, an insurance company, also suffered an enormous data breach in the last week – after spotting hackers in the computer’s database as early as March 17th the investigation concluded on June 15th; by that point, 6.9 million people had their license numbers, car insurance, and rental insurance exposed. For that, their personal identities are at so much risk: these exposures can result in fraud and identity theft. There's no specific source of how the hackers obtained all this information, but from what AssuranceAmerica claimed this is not the first data breach in their company’s history—previous cases might’ve come from “password stealing malware or compromised software”.
After recent controversy about perceived favoritism at the World Cup from Egypt and Argentina’s game, the Argentinian Football Association (AFA) reported they, too, were hacked after threatening messages were sent from their email accounts to the tabloids, citing favoritism and corrupt refereeing. The AFA acknowledged these statements, sending out an official message that their accounts were hacked and they would be looking into these malicious accounts and asked the public to disregard the hacked emails.
Well, at least hackers don’t discriminate – even religious higher education institute and seminary, Moody Bible Institute, had its inner operations hacked by an infamous threat group called Shiny Hunters who stole 23GB of sensitive data—that comes out to over ten million records and 1300 files.
Why are all these hackers so intent on sniping users’ data? As per the first paragraph, the attackers were gracious enough to leave a message chiding the organization for their poor cybersecurity setup, if any. For any data breach or ransom case, it’s a test for these hackers and the organizations. They want to see if your software systems and network security is up to date. In fact, that’s exactly what they prey upon. When a domain’s left unattended or poorly protected – referred to as a “sitting duck”, hackers will seize that empty domain and reconfigure it to appear as though nothing’s amiss.
To ensure your private records are protected, we strongly recommend you enable encryption on all your devices. Additionally, if you no longer use an account or domain, the best thing to do is deactivate it or shut it down entirely before moving onto a new one. Even if you no longer use the email that domain is attached to, hackers will stealthily seize that account and use your name for malicious intent.
We frequently advise simple cybersecurity tips such as enabling 2FA, passkeys, updating your passwords and keeping them in a private folder or document (again, enable encryption!), and if you work in a company/organization, hire a cybersecurity team. There is no greater cost than the leakage of your own personal records.
SpaceBound Solutions offers many Managed IT Services that our technicians personally consult, install, and keep ongoing maintenance with. To learn more about what services we offer, click SpaceBound | Enhance Your IT Today — Get Started.
Sources:
Another massive data breach exposed millions of driver's license numbers | TechCrunch
DCHA Cyberattack Message Reveals Claims of Encrypted Systems, Data Theft - Washington City Paper
Moody Bible Institute investigates potential data breach incident
