Internet safety threats spread differently in almost every device worldwide, and still pose major risks to the financial and operational sector of companies. According to Biden, the president of the United States, cyber attacks can provoke 'Royal War' after seeing news about internet security in the first half of this year.
Numbers, statistics and news related to data leaked on the internet give us the size of the challenge that is to deal safely on the internet. The first semester of 2021 revealed alarming data and, compared to previous years, reached records in both attacks and financial loss by companies victims of these crimes.
This article aims to show the main data and statistics on cyber attacks in the first half of 2021, and also to remember the most iconic and famous attacks of this period, in order to raise awareness managers and IT professionals responsible for the internet security.
Cyber attack statistics
The first semester of this year was marked worldwide as the year of cyber attacks. According to a report , growth compared to previous years was more than 95%.
More than 120 million cyberathel detections were recorded in the first 6 months alone. According to the report, more than 4.6 billion data were leaked on the Internet during this period and it is expected that by the end of the year the number of leaked credentials exceeds 10 billion.
In addition to leaked data, cyber espionage has been widely debated. According to an investigation by 17 organizations, he pointed out that some spyware applications were spying on journalists, politicians, lawyers, and human rights activists. The app would initially be used to spy on criminals, but some leaked data showed a list of over 50,000 phone numbers.
In Brazil, statistics are even more worrying. From January to June, Brazil suffered more than 3.2 billion attempted cyber attacks . The country leads the Latin America ranking
Home office gaps are still being explored by cybercriminals with less protected household nets. According to the Check Point Software security report
The numbers reflect the overall trend of adopting remote and hybrid work models, especially in underdeveloped countries where the concern with internet safety is lower if this one from Brazil.
To better understand the importance of the theme, see in the video below some features about the main cyber attacks:
In the next lines, you will see some of the cyber attacks and more “important” data leakage that occurred in the first half of 2021.
Large internet security failures in the first half of 2021
The first semester of 2021 reflected the importance of adopting good internet security systems and practices, especially for companies, observing all major data leaks and security breaches well explored by digital criminals.
Next, you will see the main and most impactful data leaks of the first semester and some relevant information about each case.
All these news and tips on internet security you can receive weekly in your email through our newsletter Week of Internet Safety .
Data leaked from 214 million Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn users
A Chinese company known as Socialks has exposed data from approximately 214 million Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn users, including public and private information. The revelation comes from the SafetyDetectives Researchers Laboratory, an international collective dedicated to identifying and mitigating this type of incident. According to the experts, the unprotected environment was an Elasticsearch server, a platform used to index and speed up the search within large data volumes.
Leakage of data from almost the entire Brazilian population
DFNDR LAB researchers, the PSAFE Security Laboratory identified a massive data leakage on Tuesday morning (19). Although experts did not disclose details about the exhibition, they ensure that the CPF numbers of more than 220 million citizens were exposed - that is, virtually the entire population of Brazil, including “large Brazilian authorities”. In addition, a few days later, it was discovered that in addition to the CPF, photos and salaries are also part of the leakage.
Hacker invades network of the Ministry of Health and warns that “site is garbage”
The Ministry of Health had its network invaded by a hacker on January 28. The attack, however, was not intended to leak data or cause damage to the platform - the invader made only a warning about the vulnerability: "This site is trash!". The hacker's message was exposed with capital letters on Formsus, a Datasus form creation service that collects data from patients welcomed by the public network.
New Mega Data Leakage of 102 million mobile numbers
After finding more than 223 million Brazilian CPFs on Deepweb, the cybersecurity company Psafe announced on February 10, the discovery of another megavaza. The new security failure has exposed over 102 million mobile numbers, including personalities such as journalists William Bonner and Fatima Bernardes, as well as a supposed personal phone number by President Jair Bolsonaro.
Portal Poupatempo has data leaked from 223 million Brazilians
Solution implemented in 1997 to facilitate citizen access to public information and services. The program brings together in a single place and companies providing public service.
According to Defcon Lab, a vulnerabilities, threats and cyber risks research company, a vulnerability in Poupatempo databases would have allowed invaders to gain access to data from 223 million Brazilians.
Among the leaked data are: name, social security number, mobile number, date of birth and address.
Computer giant Acer is hit by a $ 50 million ransomware attack
Acer computer giant was hit by a ransomware attack, in which threat actors demanded the biggest rescue known until the date of the incident, $ 50 million.
Acer is a Taiwanese manufacturer of electronics and computers well known for laptops, desktops and monitors. Acer employs approximately 7,000 employees and earned $ 7.8 billion in 2019.
Uncomplicated leakage exposes 4.8 million accounts data
Data leaked from Uncomplicated User User were distributed free of charge on the Internet.
Committed information include email addresses and partial numbers of 1.4 million credit cards. The data came from a leak after an attack on March 14, 2021. At the time, the uncomplicated informed the incident at its aid center. The occasion, according to the company, “impacted different data, for different segments of students”, such as ENEM, undergraduate, postgraduate, free courses, among others.
Larger Internet passwords leakage exposed more than 68,000 Brazilian government credentials
Syhunt researchers, a developer of information security solutions, based in Rio de Janeiro, analyzed a compile of leaks that consider it to be the largest password leakage in Internet history, with 3.28 billion passwords, linked to 2.18 billion emails from representatives of governments, judiciary, private companies and end users around the world, exposed in cybercriminal forum, free.
Florida Hospitals Network returns to paper and pen after cyber attack
The Florida Central Health UF suffered a reported ransomware attack that forced two hospitals to close parts of its IT structure.
The University of Florida Health, also known as UF Health, is a network of medical hospitals and offices that offers care to countries throughout Florida.
Both hospitals continued to attend patients and providing health care, but forcing employees to use paper and pen.
JBS, the world's largest meat processor has cyber attack operations
Largest meat processor in the world, JBS was paralyzed during a weekend by a major cyber attack on its global information technology systems.
The company took immediate action, suspending all affected systems, notifying the authorities and activating the company's global network of IT professionals and outsourced experts to resolve the situation. The company's backup servers were not affected and their time offline lasted only two days.
How to protect your company?
Prevention is the key word. It can be considered a cliché, but without prevention, your business can enter the statistics and news mentioned earlier.
Protecting company data on the Internet is important and directly interferes with the financial and operational sector if you do not receive the necessary attention. With the arrival of LGPD, “salty” fines may be added to costs in case of data leakage.
To avoid, there are several tools, training and care that can be used in companies, especially in small and medium. In some articles and materials here on our blog, we list some tools and care such as:
- Use antiviruses on all devices
- Keep software updated
- Protect your Wi-Fi network
- Establish a policy for the use of technology resources
- Offer training for employees
- Have backup of all the relevant data of your business
- Limit physical access to computers
- Protect financial systems information
- Be rigorous in the definition of passwords
- Block access to harmful websites and control the company's internet
- Beware of software installations without authorization
You can see more about each tip as well as some useful tools in the Internet Security Guide for companies . The material is available for download for free and you can send it to your colleagues and friends.
I hope this text can help you realize the importance of keeping your business data protected.
Until later!
