Cybercriminals Celebrate the Holidays with Dark Web Data Dumps, Dubbed “Leaksmas”
Millions of data records and GBs of data from organizations around the globe were made freely available to cybercriminals to coincide with dates around Christmas of 2023.
The pressure presented by cybercriminals threatening to publish data on the web is very compelling. After all, what company wants to be responsible for millions of everyday people potentially becoming victims of scams and cyber attacks? That’s right, not a single one.
And yet, this is exactly what happens; contact details of data breach victims are misused by scammers literally for years. We’ve seen the majority of Americans receiving scams via both email and text, the same in Australia, and continued use of LinkedIn breached data from years ago as targets. The possibilities are endless with account takeover, business email compromise, digital fraud, and more.
Late last month, endpoint protection vendor Resecurity published an article covering how numerous cybercriminals leaked data onto the dark web in a coordinated effort that impacts individuals living in the U.S., France, Peru, Vietnam, Italy, Russia, Mexico, the Philippines, Switzerland, Australia, India, South Africa, and more.
Tagged with “Free Leakmas” these data dumps were freely shared with anyone interested in grabbing a copy.
My guess is the cybercriminal world wanted to make a statement that they are a powerful force to be reckoned with.
But there’s one way they truly can be relegated to little more than an annoyance – it’s through continual security awareness training within organizations, and some equivalent for individuals. By elevating the level of understanding about how these scams work and when to maintain a sense of vigilance (hint: it’s always), both organizations and individuals can spot the true nature of malicious email and web content, dismissing them and rendering them powerless.
KnowBe4 enables your workforce to make smarter security decisions every day. Over 65,000 organizations worldwide trust the KnowBe4 platform to strengthen their security culture and reduce human risk.
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