News Analysis India

Tag: data breach

  • Cyber Attack, Data Breach Among Top Risks For Businesses In India: Survey |

    New Delhi: Cyber attacks and data breaches are the top business risks for organisations in India, according to the 2023 Global Risk Management Survey. Cyber attacks and data breaches were placed seventh in the 2021 business risks survey.

    Global professional services firm Aon collected inputs from around 3,000 risk managers, c-suite leaders, treasurers, talent professionals, and other executives from 61 countries and territories to identify the most pressing business challenges. (Also Read: Free Aadhaar Update Deadline Extended: Check List Of Required Documents To Do The Same)

    The biennial survey said that India’s dependency on technology is likely to increase with the widespread adoption of digital infrastructure like the Unified Payments Interface, Aadhaar, and Open Network for Digital Commerce. (Also Read: Poco X6 5G Gets A Significant Price Drop On Flipkart: Check Details)

    “With increasing digitisation, cybercrimes continue to become rampant with costs and complexities associated with such breaches forcing organisations to look at risk mitigation and transfer mechanisms to better manage cyber risks,” the survey noted.

    Business interruption and failure to attract or retain top talent were marked as the second and third biggest risks facing organisations in India, respectively.

    “There is a compelling need for Indian businesses to leverage advanced data analytics and experts to understand and manage the dynamics of integrated risks,” said Nitin Sethi, Chief Executive Officer of Talent Solutions in India at Aon.

    Failure to meet customer needs, rapidly changing market trends, supply chain disruptions, and personal liabilities were marked down the list as other critical challenges for businesses in India.

  • Hackers Likely Used ChatGPT To Create Fake Data Breach |

    London: Hackers have likely used ChatGPT to promote a fake data breach where they claimed a cache of stolen data from the rental car giant Europcar. The hackers claimed to have stolen the personal information of more than 48 million Europcar customers. They also threatened to sell the hacked data. However, Europcar has now revealed the whole data breach saga was created using ChatGPT.

    A Europcar spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company investigated the alleged breach after a threat intelligence service alerted it to the forum advertisement. “Thoroughly checking the data contained in the sample, we are confident that this advertisement is false,” the company spokesperson said. (Also Read: Budget 2024: Upcoming Period Will Be Golden Era For Tech-Savvy Youth, says FM)

    “The sample data is likely ChatGPT-generated (addresses don’t exist, ZIP codes don’t match, first name and last name don’t match email addresses, email addresses use very unusual TLDs),” the company informed. The hacking forum user, however, said “the data is real”.

    In the forum post, the user claimed the data included usernames, passwords, full names, home addresses, ZIP codes, birth dates, passport numbers and driver’s license numbers, among other data. Troy Hunt, who runs the data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned, posted on X that on the legitimacy of the data, “a bunch of things don’t add up”.

    “The most obvious one is that the email addresses and usernames bear no resemblance to the corresponding people’s names,” he posted. “Next, each of those usernames is then the alias of the email address. What are the chances that ‘every single username’ aligns with the email address? Low, very low,” Hunt wrote. (Also Read: ChatGPT Users Can Now Bring GPTs Into Any Conversation In OpenAI).

    However, this doesn’t make the email addresses fake and, quite the contrary, “a bunch of them are real and it’s easy to check”. 

  • Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram And Other Platforms Face Data Breach, 26 Billion Records Leaked |

    New Delhi: According to Forbes, security researchers have revealed that a massive database containing no fewer than 26 billion leaked records has been discovered on an unsecured page. Security researchers are calling it the supermassive data leak or the “Mother of all Breaches.” This data leak, likely the largest ever recorded, has affected numerous platforms, including Twitter, Telegram, Chinese messaging giant Tencent, Weibo, Adobe, Canva, LinkedIn, and Dropbox.

    Researchers from Security Discovery and Cybernews detected the breach, which reportedly spans a size of 12 terabytes. The research team suspects that the database was compiled by a malicious actor or data broker.

    According to researchers, “Threat actors could leverage the aggregated data for a wide range of attacks, including identity theft, sophisticated phishing schemes, targeted cyberattacks, and unauthorized access to personal and sensitive accounts.” (Also Read: Google Chrome To Get 3 New Generative AI Features, Will Make Your Browsing Experience Easier)

    However, the most dangerous part is that it includes numerous combinations of usernames and passwords. Cybercriminals could exploit this information to execute various attacks, including identity theft, advanced phishing schemes, targeted cyber assaults, and unauthorized entry into personal and sensitive accounts.

    Jake Moore, a global cybersecurity advisor at ESET, reckons that “We should never underestimate what cybercriminals can achieve with such limited information. Victims need to be aware of the consequences of stolen passwords and make the necessary security updates in response.” (Also Read: Apple Rolls Out iOS 17.3 Update With THESE Features; Check Here)

    Other notable breaches include MySpace (360 million), Twitter (281 million), LinkedIn (251 million), and AdultFriendFinder (220 million).