6 Weeks – 1 Billion Records Exposed
September and early October saw the revelation of one data breach after another – an excellent reminder to secure your systems and make sure you and your employees are all aware of threats and tactics used by hackers to gain data access.
Here are the major data breaches from the last several weeks of 2018 alone:
- Apollo, a sales intelligence data aggregator and analytics services, found that 200 million contacts were exposed, along with 9 BILLION data points associated with those records.
- Facebook revealed that an attack on its computer network was the largest in the company’s history, exposing the personal information of nearly 50 million users. Hackers exploited a code feature to gain access and potentially take control of their customers’ accounts.
- Google shut down consumer access to Google+ recently after they were forced to disclose a data breach. Apparently 3 rd party app developers were able to access not only the data of the 500,000 people who had given them permission – but a bug in the system allowed them to access the data of all their friends, likely reaching deep into the Google+ reported user base of 170 million.
- Textbook rental giant Chegg changed 40 million passwords after it discovered that hackers stole usernames, hashed passwords, and shipping address information.
Those are just the highlights – itgovernance.co.uk compiled data breaches totaling more than 925 million records with billions of data points exposed in September alone. And many of these breaches didn’t actually happen in September – they were discovered, or, in the case of Google+, the company was discovered to have been hiding what they had known for several months.
How Do These Security Breaches Impact You?
What do these breaches mean to you? Take Apollo, for example. Even if you were not directly involved with Apollo, many of their aggregated data points were gleaned from LinkedIn and SalesForce. The start- up data analysis corporation had 500+ client firms – and you may well be someone’s prospect. Because the hackers were able to gather very specific data, it gives them the ability to create more targeted phishing efforts that sound more plausible to the person receiving the email.
What Steps Should You Take Now?
What should you do? It’s always important to keep an eye out for scam messages, but this depth of data exposure makes it even more critical. You may well get a message that looks very legitimate and seems to “know” a great deal about you and your business. Do NOT respond to any requests for data, password changes, etc., unless you know for certain these are legitimate requests. Make sure your employees are aware of the possibility of more targeted efforts to gain access to your data.
AspenTech CRM is up to date on the latest cyber security threats. If you are concerned that your data may be at risk, it’s time to give us a call and make sure your company data – and your client and customer data within your CRM systems – are as safe as possible. We’ve offered results-driven CRM services since 1994 and want to bring you the expertise you need to create simple, safe systems for your company. Call (866) 880-4228 or click here to start a conversation with one of our CRM experts.
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