Google Verizon Security Breach

What: 43 million records which include usernames, hashed passwords, email addresses and also ad-related data of users were hacked

Even after the attack, when the company did not know whether the customer information, which included credit card information, the company had no intention to announce the security breach to the public. This can be detrimental to the company if customers became

The generation of talking face-to-face is slowly fading away, and the technology era is going to keep on growing. One of the most widely used technology services known today is the cellular phone industry. According to the Pew Research Center’s website, 90% of American adults own a cell phone. Of that 90%, the smartphone ownership is at 64% (2013). Verizon Wireless, along with the other major carriers, T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T, have taken this data and comprised a growing industry where competition arises from all angles. These companies have battled one another on pricing, plans, and customer service for many years in order to stay on top. Unfortunately, these are major factors in whether or not a customer will choose the particular company over another.

During the last Christmas season, Target announced that their data security was breached. According to David Lazarus in Los Angeles Times, Target stated that roughly 110 million customers’ information was illegally taken from their database. The information included their credit/debit card info, phone numbers, and email addresses. Target is one of the most popular grocery stores in the U.S.; they have a substantial amount of consumers. Because of this incident, consumers' trusts for the store have been decreasing. Worrying about losing its customers, the company offered a free year of credit monitoring and identity-theft protection, so the customers will feel more secure. Not only Target, some other large retailers also faced the same issues. They want their customers to trust that the companies can protect private data. However, should we not worry? Data breaches have been going on for about a decade, but we have not seriously thought about the issue. In order to protect people’s privacy, the federal government should make new laws concerning companies’ handling of customer information.

Hackers can gain access to the computer records of banks, credit card companies, hospitals, merchants, universities, government agencies, and other organizations. Though such breaches occur much more rarely than phishing, even one instance can give the hacker access to millions of people’s personal data, including Social Security numbers, birth certificates, driver’s license numbers, health records, employment records, and financial information. The FBI reports that, since

However, the impact wasn’t over. In May of 2016, a hacker named “Peace” advertised the 2012 stolen database on the darknet for $2,200 USD (Trend Micro). The database was purported to contain email addresses and passwords of 167 million accounts including cracked passwords. This number is much higher than the original 6.5 million account breach reported. In a response from LinkedIn’s Chief Information Security Office, Cory Scott (Trend Micro), he stated that, “For several years, we have hashed and salted every password in our database, and we have offered protection tools such as email challenges and dual factor authentication. We have demanded that parties cease making stolen password data available and will evaluate potential legal action if they fail to comply.” Invalidation of passwords began immediately for users with accounts created before 2012 who had never changed their password, as requested by LinkedIn, since the initial data breach.

“But in another top-secret document from the Snowden leaks, even company executives were startled to learn that, with another program called MUSCULAR, the NSA has broken into communication arteries that link Yahoo and Google data centers

There have been 23 claims recorded in the interest of Yahoo clients asserting they were hurt by the hack, as per the documenting.

As value customers of the Anthem, Inc. we believe it is important to keep each one of you informed of any incident that might affect your business with us. Your privacy and security is our priority for the reason Anthem, Inc. would like to inform our customers of a recent phishing attack. Unfortunately, we have experienced similar attacks in the past which led many of the employees and customers’ data exposed to hackers. Even though this is a serious matter for the company and the customers it is important for us to make our customers aware that phishing attacks are common and they cause huge losses to both the customers and the companies (Wright et al., 2014). Our most recent attack took place on April 2014 and it affected about 80 million identifiable data stolen via phishing emails. The

When an email account was originally established between Yahoo and Lane Corporal Ellsworth, a privacy and right to secure and not disclose information was initiated. The terms of service state in the company’s policies, that the account is non-transferable and any rights to your Yahoo ID or contents within your account terminate upon your death, upon receipt of a death certificate, your account may be terminated and all contents will be permanently deleted. When the parents of LCpl Ellsworth reached out to Yahoo requesting access to the account, Yahoo committed and obligated to withhold the information. While the companies’ condolences went to the family, it was honoring the terms of agreement. Yahoo has over 1 billion active monthly account users (Smith, 2016), all holding the same user agreement, regardless of circumstance; they should uphold the trust of the client – company

While it would be hard to pinpoint how personal information was stolen, there was the matter that when companies like ChoicePoint had security breaches, personal information often was released. Threat of privacy was another issue. Large computers maintained easy and accessible information of individuals. When it’s publicly displayed, it can cause a problem to people, if say, they have a criminal record that can follow them throughout their life. It put into question if there should be anonymity when personal information was put out. While Smith believed in the right to privacy, he didn’t see a reason for there to be a right to anonymity (Boatright, 2011,

All the consumers affected were also made vulnerable to subsequent identity theft given malicious attackers stole their personal data. Equifax was directly affected since its stock began to plunge immediately the news was made public. Additionally, the corporate governance of the company was tarnished given three Equifax executives sold shares worth around $2 million days after the breach discovery, and the “retiring” of the chief security information officers is questionable (Surane & Melin, 2017). Also, the company was exposed to litigations with some lobbyists and interest groups pushing regulators to hold Equifax accountable for the negligence and poor treatment of affected consumers. The proposed new data security laws will present a greater burden to other corporations. Two such laws are the Promoting Responsible Oversight of Transactions and Examinations of Credit Technology (PROTECT), and Freedom From Equifax Exploitation (FREE) will attract more government scrutiny and limit the type of personal data that companies can collect from customers (Alperan, Carter, & Sofio, 2017).

The analysis of 2,260 breaches and more than 100,000 incidents at 67 organizations in 82 countries shows that organizations are still failing to address basic issues and well-known attack methods. The (DBIR, 2016) shows, for example, that nearly two-thirds of confirmed data breaches involved using weak, default or stolen passwords. Also shows that most attacks exploit known vulnerabilities that organizations have never patched, despite patches being available for months – or even years – with the top 10 known vulnerabilities accounting for 85% of successful exploit “Organizations should be investing in training to help employees know what they should and shouldn’t be doing, and

In the last decade it’s amazing how technology has advanced over the years and will continue to advance for many years to come. Every year there is a new cell phone from Apple or Samsung, with new features that make our lives more convenient. From faster software to higher picture quality and so on. I am unable to recall the last time I used a camera to take pictures or went to the bank to deposit a check. Technology advances every day and many can’t wait to see what’s next to come. But with new technology comes greater risk for violations of privacy. In the following research paper I will discuss the types of security breaches and the cost associated with these breaches that businesses around the world face on a daily basis.

Although no hacker group was directly accused of the breach, the Cloudflare team identified the bug, through Google’s vulnerability expert on February 2016. However, based on the damage that was done, by the time a patch was developed, it is estimated that the bug might have been there since September 2015. Cloudflare admitted a data breach, and although they termed it as minimal, the damage was substantial since even search engines like Google and Bing caught the leaked information dump, making it possible to get the leaked information by search. The data dump included information ranging from Uber user passwords, to Cloudflare cryptographic keys.