DARK WEB DATA BREACHES AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH
Data breaches, instances where corporate or personal data is stolen or compromised are at an all-time high. Want to guess the number of files that were breached in 2020 in the United States alone? Here’s the answer: 737,000,000. That’s 737 million files containing business-critical data or sensitive personal information such as email addresses, banking credentials, and social media accounts. Last year, the FBI reported a 400% increase in cybercrime incidents, largely due to illicit Dark Web hacking on unsuspecting individuals working remotely during the coronavirus pandemic.
THE DARK WEB
The Dark Web has its origins as an incognito communication platform for the US government in the 1990s. Since its inception, it has gone on to become a haven for extremism, whistleblowing, illegal drugs, and fraud. The Dark Web, which cannot be accessed by regular browsers such as Chrome, makes up only a fraction of the total files on the internet but is nevertheless lethal. Unless users are vigilant, they stand to lose their data from keylogging, botnet and phishing malware, and ransomware that are all rampant on the Dark Web.
THE DIGITAL PANDEMIC
Some say that last year’s pilferage of data constitutes a digital pandemic. While some hackers simply want to put their skills to the test and see if they can break into business networks, the majority are after one thing – money! The 2020 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report revealed that in 2020, 86% of the data breaches were for earmarked financial gain – up from 71% in 2019. Over 67% of breaches can be attributed to credential theft and social attacks such as phishing and business email compromises with:
- 37% using stolen or weak credentials
- 25% involving phishing
- 22% caused by human error
Yana Yurakona, an analyst for London-based software company Positive Technologies, claimed:
“Since March 2020, we have noticed a surge of interest in website hacking, which is seen by the increase in the number of ads on forums on the dark web. This may have been caused by an increase in the number of companies available via the internet, which was triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of this, organizations that previously worked offline were forced to go online in order to maintain their customers and profits, and cybercriminals, naturally, took advantage of this situation.”
PERFECT FOR CYBERCRIME
Finding out that your data has been breached is the easy part. However, retrieving and removing information from the Dark Web can be almost impossible. It is the perfect place for cybercriminals to hide: IP addresses are hidden and changed, browsing data is encrypted, and payments are made with untraceable bitcoins.
HOW DO YOU BEAT IT?
Once your data is compromised and on the Dark Web, you may not be able to get it back. So how do you beat the Dark Web? Prevention is much better than cure in this case and the solution is to comprehensively protect your systems and data. By accessing Zhero’s novel and industry-tested cybersecurity technologies, you will beat the Dark Web, and know that your data is never at risk of being lost or breached.
