Brand New and Still Safe Year
So, you are now living a new year. A whole new bag full of chances. You have the possibility to make this year a great one, to make it a glorious one, to finally do everything you said you would do. So please let’s not ruin it, not this time.
And among all the things you must finally do this year, secure your website should be one of the most important in the list. It should actually be in the first place. Like we always remind you, hackers are constantly seeking for the opportunity to act, and business and personal information is being exposed every day.
Still wanting to postpone your web protection till next year? Okay, here’s a summary of what happened last year (which is actually yesterday) regarding hacks. Let’s see if this can change your mind:
2019’s Breaches Summary
- January 2019
Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start: the first days of 2019. After an important hack, Luas, Dublin’s tram service, had to take its website offline and pay almost $4.000 (not exactly an expensive hacker but definitely expensive damage to the brand image) to the attacker.
- February 2019
Let’s continue with Toyota Australia and a malware attack that knocked out its website and other communication services. Apparently, the attack took out its systems, leaving its website offline and its phone and email unavailable. Guess that the luxury car you wanted to buy has had to wait.
- March 2019
Days went by, and Gearbest, one of the most well-known Chinese e-commerce, suffered a cyberattack, involving the expose of million of their customer’s data — passport numbers, national ID numbers and full sets of unencrypted data, including email addresses and passwords. Well, ever heard of Probely?
- April 2019
One of the most expensive breaches that occurred this year was the Microsoft one. Hackers hijacked its development tool Visual Studio, seeding backdoors into three video game companies that use the tool. 92,000 computers were running malicious versions of the affected video games, according to WIRED. During the attack, hackers seed malicious code into a company’s software that was distributed to clients.
- May 2019
Probably another great low blow for Mark, WhatsApp attackers detected a vulnerability in the messaging app and managed to inject Israeli spyware into phones.
- June 2019
It was only half of the year when an unauthorized account accessed data from Quest Diagnostics, a clinical laboratory. Hackers had information of almost 11.9 million patients, including credit card information and social security numbers. The result? The business which collected patient receivables for medical bills ended in bankruptcy.
- July 2019
2019 was the year in which one of the largest hacks in history occurred. Attackers stole users’ banking information, including transaction history, balances, credit scores, and addresses from Capital One. The data breach, according to Business Insider, impacted tens of millions of credit card applicants.
- August 2019
The ECB (European Central Bank) announced an attack on one of its websites, leaving personal information at risk. In the meanwhile, the website was shut down.
- September 2019
Just like love, or that’s what they say, hacks have no frontiers. Attacks occur at any time of the year and in any place in the world. The University of Ghana’s registration portal hacked, redirecting students to a malicious version of the site.
- October 2019
Heading to the last months of the year, many WordPress consumers installed a Plugin that came with Cryptocurrency Mining Function.
- November 2019
Almost about to finish unmarked this time, hackers successfully infiltrated once again Macy’s e-commerce site, stealing customer data, including financial critical information such as name, full address, phone number, email address, payment card number, card security code and card month/year of expiration.
- December 2019
Finally the end of the year and it’s time for MixCloud now. A hacker breached the online music streaming and put up for sale on the dark web sensible information of 21 million Mixcloud users for $2.000.
For a 2020 without breaches
Well, this is only a quick summary but there are still hundreds and hundreds of cases just from 2019, and I don’t even want to imagine what will happen this 2020 if companies don’t start protecting their businesses. A data breach happens almost every day and it might not be recognized for years. Hackers don’t attack only the big companies but the most vulnerable ones, so you need to be one step ahead of the hackers.
Remember you still have one whole new year to secure your website if you’re not doing it already. You can use any security tool alternative and all of your efforts to avoid any situation mention before. And since we are Probely, if you need help to secure your website, you’re always welcome to give us a try.
Wish you a Happy New Year without breaches!
