Researchers from the security firm 4iQ have made a disturbing discovery on the dark web. A massive repository has been discovered that contains a staggering 1.4 billion usernames and passwords in plain text. The repository is well organized, with each letter of the alphabet having its own directory to facilitate rapid search, and 4iQ has tested a subset of the data it contains and found an alarming percentage of the usernames and passwords to be viable. It should be noted that this data … Read more
Uber Paid To Hide Massive Data Breach From Public
It has recently come to light that the company was hacked in 2016 in a massive breach that exposed the personal information of more than 57 million Uber users and drivers. A wide range of data was stolen. Where users were concerned, names, email addresses, and phone numbers were compromised. As bad as that is, the problem was even worse for more than 600,000 of the company's drivers who had their driver's license numbers hacked, too. Standard protocol is that when a breach like this … Read more
Facebook Has A Major Problem With Fake Accounts
Facebook has been in hot water with evidence mounting that hordes of fake accounts were used to spread misinformation about the recent presidential election. In addition to sparking congressional hearings, it also prompted Facebook and the other major social media companies to do a deep dive into their own active accounts and get a better sense of just how large and pervasive the problem was. According to Facebook's most recent quarterly earnings report, the problem turned out to be a fair … Read more
New Ransomware “BadRabbit” Starting To See Infections In The US
You may not have heard of the new strain of ransomware known as BadRabbit. If you haven't, it's because the overwhelming percentage of BadRabbit attacks have been occurring in Russia, which accounts for 71 percent of all known infections at present. Unfortunately, there have been a few infections reported in the United States, which may be a harbinger of things to come. The new threat is functionally similar to NotPetya, which not only encrypts the files on a target system but also then … Read more
Top Subject People Fall Victim To Is – Data Breach Notification
For hackers around the world, success breeds more success, it seems. A company called KnowBe4 has released a report entitled "Top Ten Global Phishing Email Subject Lines For Q3 2017." To prepare it, they analyzed email subject lines from simulated phishing tests to determine what the most effective approach was. Their findings were that "Official Data Breach Notification" was the hands-down winner, generating far more click-throughs than any other. Perry Carpenter, KnowBe4's Chief … Read more
New Hack Attempts To Access Office 365 Passwords
Companies are getting better at detecting and fending off brute force attacks. Depending on how big, and how hard-hitting the attack is, it can still get through, of course, but the main problem with such an attack is that it’s impossible to miss. The moment it starts, security professionals know what’s going on, and can immediately spring into action. Of course, the hackers know this, and have been looking for ways around the problem. How can they launch an attack that will go … Read more
