The Highest Profile Cyber Crimes of 2020

The year 2020 could be described with several words. No one would probably describe it as their favorite year ever, but it certainly forced change in a lot of ways. For example, many needed to transition to working from home rather quickly. But while companies were trying to stay safe, healthy, and get comfortable with video conferencing, there were criminals ready to take advantage of the situation. Sadly, 2020 was a year with record breaking data breaches. Some of which we will discuss here today, along with insight on these events provided by experts.

Twitter

One of the most notable events in cyber security to occur last year was the attack on Twitter. Many high-profile users were targeted and hacked by criminals to defraud them with a Bitcoin scam.

Niamh Muldoon of OneLogin has this to say on the subject: “Those Twitter users considered “High-Value Targets” must stay security conscious around the clock and make decisions to protect themselves and limit their personal risk.”

MGM

Those who stayed at MGM Resorts will know that such sensitive information as names, addresses, and DOB’s were leaked last year. Some 10.6 million were affected. Experts have these sentiments to share.

David Kennefick from Edgescan: “The only concern I would have with this is it’s taken nearly a year for this to become public knowledge, I would hope that they have already contacted the impacted customer and allowed them keep an eye out for general fraud and potential phishing/spear phishing attacks. Going forward, when booking a hotel room, we should set a standard of being able to do this while providing as little information as possible.”

Felix Rosbach from comforte AG: “While there is no sure-fire way to prevent attackers from getting access to an enterprise network, there are solutions that protect valuable customer information. Being able to not only protect passwords but also related personal data reduces the risk of misuse of data and resulting reputational damage drastically. Companies should look to ​ deploy data security tactics such as stateless tokenization to protect the privacy of their customers.”

Fire Eye

As cyber security increases, criminals are employing more novel and sophisticated techniques to undermine it. An example of this was the attack on the popular cyber security agency Fire Eye.

Dan Panesar from Securonix has this to say: “ The hackers have claimed a real treasure trove during this audacious raid. They’ve stolen an espionage kit that targets vulnerabilities across a whole raft of enterprise software products. This hack is a stark reminder to the entire cyber security industry, on the importance of working together to defend against these sophisticated, well funded groups intent on cyber Armageddon”

If such high-profile institutions are not free from the risk of cyber-attacks, no one is. At JCOMM we are dedicated to helping establishments protect their properties, both physical and cyber. If you need to implement cyber security, give us a call today. We would be happy to help.

By JCOMM 1-11-2021