Are You Sure That Your Private Data Is Safe?
The more information people store on the Internet, the more likely hackers will steal it. It happens not only because the popularity of cloud solutions is growing among users, but also because a huge part of life happens on the network. Even states now keep digital records of citizens. First cases of serious data breaches date back to the 80s. Frequency grew considerably in the 2000s as the Internet evolved from luxury to a common ‘must-have’.
According to Hackmageddon, there were 2332 cyberattacks in 2020, which is 22% more compared to 2019.
Most Common Data Breaches
According to Revision Legal, hackers have four key motivations:
- 85.17% — cybercrime (stealing data for financial profit).
- 9.94% — cyber espionage (stealing business-sensitive information).
- 2.34% — hacktivism (hacking for social or political reasons).
- 1.83% — cyber warfare (attacks against a nation-state).
As you can see, most hackers are interested in making a profit from their actions.
Here are the ways they use to achieve this goal:
- Stealing information
This is the most common case of cyber hijacking. Intruders access business information and use it for their benefit.
As Statista reports, the most attacked industries are:
1) Business
2) Healthcare
3) Education
4) Banking
5) Government - Phishing
There may be twin sites that look like original ones and collect your login details. Such links commonly come in hackers’ emails. - Malware
Such viruses are usually intended to wipe out all the data stored on the device. They are spread as email attachments as well. - Ransomware
This is when you see the message that your device has been hacked and you must pay a fee to unlock it. - Recording keystrokes
Keyloggers installed on your device by hackers track every keystroke. This way, criminals can access any type of information from passwords and card numbers to information within databases (names, addresses). - Password guessing
Stealing passwords is still popular nowadays and is made easy as users often don’t worry about creating complex codes, or using 2-factor authentication. - DDoS attacks (Distributed Denial-of-Service)
Such attacks tend to target large companies in order to stop their website or online system functioning. It makes it impossible to work with the system until the DDoS attack has been stopped.
Information Theft and Office Apps
As we’ve established, the most common situation is when hackers steal business information. It causes serious consequences for companies and their clients:
- Financial losses
- Operational disruption.
- Reputational damages.
- Even problems with the law.
The key point is the more time a company spends identifying and containing a breach, the more negative the effects will be. IBM reports that it takes on average 228 days to identify a breach and 80 days to contain it. The average cost of this amounted to $3.86 million in 2020.
So, what is up with office apps everyone uses on a daily basis?
According to Statista, office applications are most often targeted by cyber-attacks. For comparison, in the third quarter of2020, data leaks occurred through office apps in 70.79% of cases, browsers see second highest breach of security at 14.76%, and other applications occupy from 1 to 7%.
Varonis has found out that 58% of companies have 1,000+ folders that had inconsistent permissions, with only 5% of folders strongly protected. It means that unauthorised users can access documents from these folders. All the private information stored there is not safe at all!
Why Does This Happen?
When you come across a data breach, you always ask yourself a question: “What have I done wrong?” Knowing the answer might help you avoid the same pitfall next time. CIT state there are four main causes for losing access to private data:
- Negligent employee or contractor — 48%
- Third-party mistakes — 41%
- External (hacker) attacks — 27%
- Malicious insider — 5%
How Can You Protect Private Data?
Collabio Spaces has researched this issue extensively so as to create the technology that truly protects user data.
All the mistakes that lead to data breaches happen only in the case of cloud storage and collaboration. Not so long ago, there were no alternatives to Google Documents or MS Office 365. People could only choose whether to store their document on own or dedicated servers. With our cloudless P2P collaboration technology no hackers will access your documents. Only trusted peers will be able to view and edit private information as long as the document is opened on the document owner’s device.
How it works:
- You start an editing session and invite peers to collaborate:
- For those who are nearby, only a pin code is needed. The connection is available through a hotspot. No clouds, no Internet at all!
- If you want to edit your documents with peers from other cities or countries, you can generate a link that they will open via the Internet. However, no data can leak into the web, as the Internet is necessary only for connecting your devices and transmitting edits during your collaboration session. The document itself will be saved and kept on your device. - Co-author private documents in real-time safe in the knowledge that no unauthorised users can access the session. The system simply won’t let them in. The list of collaborators is displayed within the app.
- Once you (as a document owner) close the document, others lose access to it. Your data is exclusive to your device. No one can access the information saved unless they physically access your device.
Still wondering why this technology is better than cloud services or exchanging private documents via email? Here’s why:
- Both email and cloud storage can be hacked.
- Editing documents in real-time is impossible via email.
- Cloud and email services take control of your data. They are responsible for the storage and safety of files, although the latter cannot be controlled in any way.
As you can see, using P2P collaboration will save you from 95% of possible risks. So, it makes sense to try out new technology to retrieve control over your sensitive information. To help you out, we offer free trials (up to 14 days), so you can test drive before making the final decision.
P.S. Keep in mind, there may be network configurations where remote P2P connection will not be available for peers located inside Symmetric NAT network. We’re on the case and will soon release a stable version of this technology, compatible with any network configuration!
