Identity is Security: Collecting Data

Some people collect snow globes. Others collect trophies. And some collect data breaches. All eyes are focused on the big collection of 2.2 billion unique usernames and passwords that was recently discovered making its way around the internet. We often look at these major breaches in retrospect and wonder how we could have prevented them. But now, thanks to the continued practice of repeating passwords across consumer and business accounts paired with the bounty of user credentials out in the wild, we have to look at these breaches and data leaks in future tense. They could lead to another breach in the future, which opens up a huge area of exposure for today’s enterprises.

In fact, a recent survey found that businesses are being hit with a dozen or more credential stuffing attacks per month, and the recent DailyMotion breach is just one very recent example.

All this data talk is particularly relevant as we celebrated Data Privacy Day this week. Mike Kiser and David Lee examined the latest and greatest in GDPR in the latest episode of Mistaken Identity as they discussed the $57 million fine Google was just pegged with in France. You can listen in on that discussion below.

In other news, Japan is turning heads as they work to prepare for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. In an effort to bolster security before the games, they’re going to try hacking into more than 200 million connected devices across the country. They will then reach out to the owners of the devices that they’re able to compromise to encourage them to improve their password or other security measures. It’s an interesting but invasive approach, and we will keep an eye out for the outcome.

We’re also seeing the talent gap get its time in the limelight recently. That’s partly because it’s an ever-present issue but also because (ISC)2 recently released their research showing a global gap of almost 3 million cybersecurity jobs.

Finally, we always like to end these news recaps on a high note, and this week we saw a white-hat hacker turned CEO share her story on the Today show. Check out the video below and then let us know what you’re reading this week in cybersecurity!