2.6 billion cloud accounts breached in two years

On December 7, Apple announced research conducted by professor Stuart Madnick of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). The results show that personal data breaches have become a “pandemic” worldwide. In just two years, the report noted more than 2.6 billion accounts were compromised and the trend was “getting worse by the end of 2023”.

In the US alone, the number of people affected in the first 9 months of the year was 20% higher than in any previous year. More than 80% of breaches involved data stored on cloud services this year. Attacks targeting cloud services nearly double from 2021 to 2022.

Research estimates that on average each year there are thousands of data breaches that expose the personal information of hundreds of millions of users. Hackers are said to continually develop new methods to defeat the security practices that once hindered them. “Even organizations with the strongest security measures in place can be threatened in new ways in just a short time,” the report said.

Even if users have taken steps to secure it, that data is still at risk of being compromised if the organizations and companies they entrust store it in a readable form. For example, when trying to break into companies with strong security measures, hackers often start by targeting another organization with weaker security but a technical business relationship with the target. final goal. They then steal credentials or information that helps them target employees or systems at the organization that are their primary target.

Mr. Stuart Madnick said that users today have a high demand for storing personal data online due to the development of new technology services. This forces major technology companies to introduce stronger data protection measures such as end-to-end encryption. This is also the reason why Apple launched advanced data protection technology for iCloud (Advanced Data Protection for iCloud) last year.

The iCloud service now uses end-to-end encryption to provide Apple’s highest level of data security. 14 categories of sensitive data use end-to-end encryption by default, including passwords in iCloud Keychain and Health data. For users who turn on the new feature Advanced Data Protection for iCloud, the system will upgrade to 23 categories of data security, including iCloud Backup, Notes and Photos.

“Bad actors are constantly pouring time and resources into finding more effective ways to steal user data, and we’re constantly working to stop them,” Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President of Engineering Apple software said. “The growing threat means we must always find new ways to prevent it.”

Tuan Hung