Tag Archives: hack

Sci-Tech

Top sites data breached last year include linkedin

Leave a comment

Almost 6 billion accounts affected in data breaches in 2021 

The year 2021 was record-breaking in terms of the sheer size of data breaches. According to the data collected and analyzed by the Atlas VPN team, 5.9 billion accounts were affected by data breaches throughout 2021. 

Atlas VPN has retrieved and calculated the numbers of breached accounts based on multiple publicly available sources. The total count includes worldwide data breaches that took place from January 1st, 2021, to December 31st, 2021. 

Image

February saw the biggest data breach of all-time — COMB, or in other words, the Compilation of Many Breaches, which is responsible for the leak of a whopping 3.2 billion unique cleartext email and password combinations.

The breach was named this way because it is not a result of a single hack of a specific organization but rather combines leaked data from a number of different breaches spanning five years, including Netflix, LinkedIn, and others.

The breached data was first offered for sale on RaidForums, an underground database sharing and marketplace forum, for just $2 in February. Other breaches that made it to the top five biggest data leaks of 2021 include LinkedIn (700 million people), Facebook (533 million people), Brazil’s Ministry of Health (220 million people), and SocialArks (214 million people). 

Cybersecurity writer and researcher at Atlas VPN Ruta Cizinauskaite shares her thoughts on 2021 data breach trends: “Even with data breaches becoming a growing threat, it seems organizations are still not putting enough effort in protecting the personal information of their users. One of the first things every organization should do is evaluate the amount of sensitive user data it collects — the less sensitive data is stored, the lesser the risk of it being leaked.”

Gaming

Minecraft is most malware infected game

Leave a comment

228k Users Affected, Are You One Of Them?

As people are looking for ways to unwind at home, the gaming industry has been one of the primary places people set their eyes on. Not only is it a way to entertain yourself for hours on end, but it is also a place for people to connect, which is otherwise hard to do during the pandemic. 

According to data presented by the Atlas VPN team, 303,827 individuals’ devices were affected by gaming-related malware and unwanted software between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021. Mobile games are also a major threat for gamers.

As many as 50,644 users attempted to download 10,488 unique files disguised as the ten most-played mobile games, generating a total of 332,570 detections. Minecraft was by far the most popular game on both PC and mobile platforms for dangerous app distributors to hide behind. On PC, nearly 185 thousand users were affected with over 3 million malware and unwanted software detections.

On mobile, the number of victims exceeds 44 thousand for the period.

Unwanted software includes files like adware, spyware, and so on. There are various versions of Minecraft and a plethora of mods (modifications that may be placed on top of the basic game to diversify gameplay) may account for its enormous popularity. Because mods are unofficial and developed by users, they can be used to hide dangerous payloads or undesirable software. 

Security tips for gamers

  • Protect your accounts with two-factor authentication (2-FA) whenever possible. 
  • Use strong passwords for your accounts, with a different one for each. That way, even if one of your accounts is compromised, the remainder will remain unaffected.
  • Downloading games from official retailers such as Steam, Apple App Store, Google Play, or Amazon Appstore is safer. These marketplaces aren’t completely safe, but they are at least examined by store staff, and there is some sort of screening procedure in place: not every app is allowed into these stores.
  • If you want to buy a game that isn’t accessible in major stores, you should do it through the official website. Make sure to double-check the website’s URL to avoid impostor sites.
  • Be cautious of phishing campaigns and unfamiliar players. If you are unsure about the sender, do not open links you receive via email or in a gaming chat. Do not open files sent to you by strangers.

Another one of the most well-known game titles worldwide, The Sims 4, was the second most often used title to distribute unwanted files. Over 43 thousand users were impacted, with detections closing in on 1.3 million.  For the Silo, Valentina Perez.