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Data Breaches Fell in 2020, but Identity Thieves Still Raked in Billions

posted by Fnord666 on Friday January 29 2021, @01:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the making-the-most-of-a-bad-situation dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Based on what we know so far, hackers didn't steal as much personal data in 2020 as they did in previous years, but that doesn't mean they weren't able to make plenty of money. According to a report released Thursday by the Identity Theft Resource Center, hackers and identity thieves used stolen passwords and personal information to profit in new ways from your information.

[...] These trends show that it's currently more lucrative for criminals to find new ways to make money off previously stolen data or to carry out ransomware attacks than it is to steal loads of consumer data and try to sell it on the black market, [said] Eva Velasquez, president and CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center. "This is not the time for complacency," she added.

[...] There are some big caveats in the numbers, however. Breaches we haven't learned about yet may crop up if, for example, we learn the SolarWinds hacks that affected hundreds of companies and government agencies led to breaches of personal information. And 2020 was hardly a banner year for curbing cybercrime. Like many of us in the pandemic, criminals hunkered down and made the best of what they had on hand in 2020.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 29 2021, @01:21AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 29 2021, @01:21AM (#1106410)

    Unemployment benefit payments got sucked out by these ... people?

    Ruskies, Chicom, I can grok, but what the fuck is with Nigerians? It's like a payback for American slavery?

    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 29 2021, @05:22PM

      by Freeman (732) on Friday January 29 2021, @05:22PM (#1106643) Journal

      Who do you expect the Nigerians to target? Russians? Chinese? Yeah, both of those are much closer than the USA. Also, the USA has proved to be a nice soft squishy target. The USA at least on paper is all about personal freedoms, thus you're free to screw yourself by sending some "Nigerian Prince", your life savings. Whereas the Russians and Chinese are a lot more controlling of the internet pipelines.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"

  • (Score: 2) by Lester on Sunday January 31 2021, @10:17AM

    by Lester (6231) on Sunday January 31 2021, @10:17AM (#1107182) Journal

    Everything is more centralized.

    Time ago there were a million of services, blogs, mail servers etc, now we have google, Amazon, Facebook... and a few more. So there are just a few targets, so fewer attacks. But those targets have bigger bounties and more accounts are hacked on each attack.

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