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In excess of 50 data leaks affecting more than 6 mil­lion data records

Secu­rity researchers have iden­ti­fied sev­eral mil­lion data records over the past few weeks which were avail­able unpro­tected on the Internet due to data leaks – and some­times still are.

Online ser­vice providers unfor­tu­nately still just don’t care enough about the secu­rity of their cus­tomer data. This emerged from a study by the German Chaos Com­puter Club (CCC). Their experts recently uncov­ered more than 50 cases where data sources totalling some 6.4 mil­lion per­sonal data records have been siphoned off or were avail­able unprotected.

Although it is gen­er­ally easy to pre­vent any data leaks, they keep recur­ring. The damage to users caused by siphoned data which might poten­tially then have been abused is some­times exten­sive, since per­sonal data can for instance be abused for iden­tity fraud.

Unfor­tu­nately, end users are unable to pre­vent data from leaking – but they can pro­tect them­selves against the consequences:

  • Always use dif­ferent pass­words for dif­ferent online ser­vices. This will avoid the risk of sev­eral online accounts becoming com­pro­mised all at once in case a data leak occurs.
  • Always check your online ser­vice provider bills and account state­ments promptly. If you find any pur­chases or trans­ac­tions not actu­ally made by you, imme­di­ately notify your provider and have your account blocked.
  • Check reg­u­larly whether you have been affected by a data leak with the help of the “Have I Been Pwned“ ser­vice. Imme­di­ately change your pass­word for any online ser­vices poten­tially affected.

 

 

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