byte by byte
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those who could be traced came from Russia and one in six from the US. More than two-thirds were smart enough to cover their tracks by accessing the data from ‘anonymous’ Tor network IP addresses. The thought of hundreds of hackers descending on your data and prying into your banking and social media accounts will make many people uncomfortable. And Bitglass is hoping this will persuade more individuals, and employees, to change their online behaviour and at least use different passwords for their different accounts. CEO Nat Kausik said, “Like many internet users, our fictitious bank employee used the same password across several web services, including social media sites and personal banking accounts. And hackers were unrelenting when it came to
accessing the victim’s other accounts. “Our data-tracking experiment reveals the dangers of re-using passwords and shows just how quickly phished credentials can spread, exposing sensitive corporate and personal data.” Buying data is easy It’s a theme taken up by anti-virus firm McAfee which, like Bitglass, recently set out to track out what happens to people’s stolen personal, bank account and payment card data. McAfee, part of Intel Security, discovered a sophisticated black market in personal data, where the biggest shock was that this sensitive information is now so plentiful, you can buy the Visa, MasterCard or Amex card details of someone in the US for as little as $5-8, or $20-25 for a victim based
International Finance Magazine Jul - Sep 2016
in the UK. The market is so highly developed that, for a slightly premium price, hackers can specify exactly which country-of-origin or card type they want, whether a PIN number is included, and even the amount of money available in the victim’s account for the hacker to steal. Raj Samani, chief technology officer for Intel Security in Europe, commented on this: “What is particularly significant is how inexpensive it is to purchase this type of data, with payment cards selling for the price of a cup of coffee. We are hopeful that such insights provide a compelling answer to the question ‘So what?’ “Feeling numb to the dizzying statistics is a dangerous trend. We need consumers and businesses to not simply shrug off data
The main advice is don’t use the same password you use for your email to access your online banking and Facebook, etc. Raj Samani, CTO for Intel Security in Europe