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According to one security report from BBC News, data breaches are a time bomb that allows the customer’s privacy to be violated and their information to be exposed.
Another article from the same source reveals that criminals on the internet can see through your smart cameras and baby monitors when they are on their default setting, meaning that you would have to actually tweak the settings after purchasing these products in order to stop voyeurs and perverts from being able to see inside your child’s bedroom.
Cyber Security Data Breaches Are a Time Bomb
The head of global security services at Verizon, Bryan Sartin shares how shocked he was that more of the world’s data breaches have not been made public.
If a company loses customer data, they could face fines that are as much as 4 percent of their revenue worldwide, under the protection laws outlined in Europe.
His surprise comes after a report was published that showed thousands of attacks that had been successful.
That report also revealed that senior staff members of several large companies have been facing growing threats from phishing attacks which were very well organized.
The report that Sartin is referencing, the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, speaks of information obtained from over 2000 breaches that attacked organizations of all sizes across the globe.
Over 40,000 incidents, such as malware campaigns, spam campaigns, and web attacks were also logged.
Sartin believes that these attacks are a time bomb waiting to go off at any moment, leaving customer information exposed to experienced criminals.
Sartin also expects this information to be leaked to the public at any time.
Little Information Has Been Made Public on Data Breaches
In fact, he is shocked that with so many instances of attacks in the report, there is so little information about them that has shown up in the public during the last year.
The General Data Protection Regulation came into effect in Europe at that time.
This law requires any company that loses data to make it known as soon as possible after the breach has occurred.
There are similar laws in place in the United States to protect consumers and company executives from data breaches.
If the companies which experienced the breach are found to have failed to do everything possible to protect personal data as required, they will face heavy fines.
Sartin feels that there are likely a few “big situations” that are about to be exposed.
He explains that a data compromise can happen in just a few minutes, and last for hours, days, or even months if undiscovered, and yet it is still taking months for them to be found.
Senior Staff of Larger Companies at Risk of Data Breach
These reports show that the people who are at the greatest risk of becoming victims of this type of breach are the senior members of larger companies.
These cyber-criminals will seek out the login information of these executives so that they can take advantage of the high-level access given to senior staff.
Sartin pointed out that while technology may fail sometimes, the biggest issue is human error.
Especially when on mobile devices, humans are more susceptible to being taken advantage of.
Luckily, there is only about 3 percent of those who are targeted through phishing emails that fall prey to the tactic, which is down from the previous year’s 12 percent.
It is also important to note that if an attack will require them to break through more than four types of cyber defenses, a cyber thief will usually not even try to break through it.
Sartin advises that companies build a defense that takes at least five steps to penetrate because there is rarely a cyber-criminal who will even bother with that.
Are You Allowing Criminals in Your Child’s Bedroom?
Aside from the risk of data breach attacks on senior staff at larger companies as well as on consumers, there is also a cyber attack of a more perverted sense lurking in today’s world of technology.
People who have security smart cameras and baby monitors in their homes are being advised to be aware that these products are vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
Unlike the data breaches in the Verizon report, however, these allow criminals right into your homes and the sanctity of your children’s bedrooms.
The technical director of the National Cyber Security Centre, Dr. Ian Levy shared with BBC that there were many instances reported in which these types of devices were accessed by perverts and criminals without the permission of the owners.
If the users’ passwords are not strong enough, these devices will allow these cyber-criminals to secretly watch you and your family right inside of your home.
In some of these attacks, the criminal even uses smart cameras and baby monitors to speak to those living in the house.
Protecting Your Family From Devices that Protect Your Family
In one example, a young girl was frightened by a voice that told her he was Father Christmas.
In another attack, a couple from Leeds discovered that someone had looked in on them in their own home thousands of times without them being aware of it.
Once an attacker has gained control of a camera in the home, they can control it from wherever they are, anytime that they want to.
They can change the camera’s angle and focus to look around the home and get a closer look at your spouse, your child, your passwords when you log in to phones, laptops, and more.
While experts do not want consumers to be afraid of these attacks, they do want them to be aware.
Changing the default passwords to something that would be hard to crack is one way that you can protect your home and family from cyber attackers taking over the smart cameras and baby monitors there.
After all, these devices were designed to protect your family and your home, not expose them to cyber-criminals.