The Debut Of Modern Cybercrime Happened Earlier Than Most Think
The Morris worm of 1988 pre-dates the world wide web, and yet, it was disruptive enough to result in the first felony cybercrime conviction in the United States. The simple, self-replicating malware program wrecked 10% of networked computers and cost about $250,000. By today’s comparison, that number is a drop in the bucket. Let’s go back and unpack three of the costliest, most destructive cyberattacks of 2019.
3. Imperva | April 30th | Largest Distributed Denial-of-service Attack In History
On April 30th, cybersecurity leader Imperva recorded a high-volume packets-per-second attack that peaked at a staggering 580 million, which made history as the leading cyberattack of this kind. Earlier in January, Imperva sustained a similar incursion that unleashed nearly 500 million packets-per-second. In both instances, Imperva boasts that its new common mitigation state (CMS) feature to its DoS protection service effectively blocked the barrages within minutes.
2. Capital One | March-July | 106 Million Credit Account Holders
From approximately March 22nd to July 19th, a software engineer exploited a security vulnerability that siphoned off credit application and account data of millions of Capital One customers. Disturbingly, Capital One wasn’t even aware of the breach until a cybersecurity researcher discovered anomalous data on the popular software development platform GitHub almost four months later. An in-depth analysis estimates this event cost the institution between $100 million and $150 million and affected nearly 100 million Americans and roughly 6 million Canadians.
1. Canva | May 24th | 139 Million Affected Customers
An industrious hacker named Gnosticplayers was stopped in their tracks when Canva data security analysts detected a theft in progress and immediately closed a compromised database server. Still, the culprit was able to seize a sizable amount of profile data upwards of 139 million users along with cryptographically protected passwords. The cybersecurity leader has since provided full disclosure of details surrounding the May 24th violation.
The Future of Cybercrime and How to Protect Sensitive Data
Cybersecurity experts predict the cost of cybercrime will climb to $6 trillion annually by 2021. Undoubtedly, cyber-theft incidents are increasing in both intensity and complexity, with social engineering methodologies leading as the most prevalent form of execution. Fortunately, hashed out by The SSL Store™ provides expert advice to keeping data safe from cyber thieves.