Data Privacy and Data Breaches in 2020
Data privacy is more important than ever — so why are there so many data breaches happening?
Data privacy has been a hot topic for several years now. There have been regulations put in place, such as the GDPR and Canada’s CAN-SPAM act but still, large corporations are experiencing data breaches. In these instances, there is nothing the user could have done to protect themself — they are at the mercy of the security systems that the corporation uses to protect their data.
But just how common — and how large — are data breaches? Let’s take a look at just a few recent data breaches:
On January 16, 2019, a flaw within the popular video game Fortnite exposed players to being hacked. The game has 200 million users worldwide, 80 million of whom are active each month (IdentityForce).
With 2,013 confirmed data breaches in 2019, we’ve outlined some of the most recent and impactful security breaches of the year. This data indicates the recency and widespread impact data breaches are having on compromising sensitive information. via Varonis.com
If you haven’t heard of Fortnite, it’s an incredibly popular game with millions of users. Even a small security flaw can wreak havoc on a fun game. With over 200 million users, the Fortnite game is an instant target for hackers.
Security expert Bob Diachenko discovered that a database containing personal information of more than 267 million Facebook users had been left exposed. The exposed data included names, phone numbers, and Facebook IDs. Hackers in Vietnam are believed to be responsible. via SelfKey
While some breaches are the result of insufficient security being built into the system, many are the result of hackers. Hackers can try and force their way into a system, or they can try and exploit security flaws that already exist. Either way, organizations will rarely know that they’re being hacked until it’s too late.
A recent NowSecure benchmark test of 250 of the most popular Android apps was equally disturbing. We found 3 out of 4 apps leaked sensitive personal data that put users at risk of fraud and identity theft, including:
82% of brick-and-mortar retail apps and 92% of online retail apps
67% of travel apps
50% of financial and insurance apps
With laws in place to protect consumer data, we’d like to think the apps we use are abiding by those rules. Unfortunately, many are not and are instead sharing private data that users did not consent to be released. This is an issue of sheer volume: there are simply too many apps to try and test each one for security issues before going live in the app store.
