Ferrari, the renowned Italian luxury sports car manufacturer, recently disclosed that it experienced a data breach after hackers gained unauthorized access to some of the company’s IT systems. The attackers then demanded a ransom not to leak data stolen from its systems.
According to the breach notification letters sent to customers, the cybercriminals were able to access a limited number of systems in Ferrari’s IT environment. The victim confirmed that the stolen data includes the names, addresses, email addresses, and telephone numbers of its customers. However, the company has not yet disclosed whether the breach was a ransomware attack or an extortion attempt.
Upon receiving the ransom demand, Ferrari reported the attack to relevant authorities and initiated an investigation in collaboration with a leading global third-party cybersecurity firm to determine the extent of the breach. The company has taken measures to secure the compromised systems and stated that the attack has had no impact on its operations.
The stolen customer information does not include payment details, bank account numbers, or other sensitive payment information, according to Ferrari’s statement. So far, the company has not found any evidence that such information was accessed or stolen.
A serious threat for cybersecurity
The breach highlights the ongoing threat of cybercrime, particularly for companies with valuable intellectual property or customer data. It is essential for companies to adopt effective cybersecurity measures to prevent attacks and protect their customers’ information.
Ferrari’s response to the breach shows that it takes cybersecurity seriously and has policies in place to deal with incidents of this nature. The company didn’t pay any ransom as it believes that doing so funds criminal activity and perpetuates the problem. Instead, they sent breach notification letters to affected customers, informing them of the potential data exposure and the nature of the incident.
Ferrari’s statement also highlights the importance of collaboration between companies and cybersecurity firms. Working together, they can investigate and mitigate the impact of cyberattacks more effectively.
The famous prancing horse company’s incident serves as a reminder to all companies to review their cybersecurity measures regularly. Businesses should ensure that their systems are up to date, use strong passwords, and limit access to sensitive data. Companies should also educate their employees on cybersecurity best practices to reduce the risk of human error leading to a data breach.
Lesson learned
More than ever it’s crucial for companies to take cybersecurity seriously and to adopt effective measures to protect their customer’s data. Companies should stay vigilant and implement strong cybersecurity measures, to minimize the risk of becoming a victim of cybercrime.
In today’s digital age, the internet has become an essential part of our lives. Whether for work or leisure, most activities rely on a stable internet connection. However, with the increasing frequency of cyber attacks, monitoring our internet connection and the data used by various applications has become crucial. According to a recent study by SonicWall, there were 304.7 million attempted cyber attacks in the first half of 2021 alone, indicating a 47% increase from the same period in 2020.
An Internet connection monitor can help you keep track of your internet usage and identify any potential threats to your online security. In this article, we’ll explore why monitoring your internet connection data and the specific apps using your data is crucial in preventing cyber attacks.
The Importance of Monitoring Your Internet Connection
In today’s digital world, apps have become a part of our daily lives. From social media to banking, we rely on apps for various purposes. However, with the increasing number of cyber attacks targeting apps, monitoring your internet connection data has become crucial to ensure app security. This article explains why monitoring your internet connection data is essential for app security and provides tips on how to do it effectively.
Uncovering Security Threats
Monitoring your internet connection can help you identify potential security threats before they become an issue. This includes activities like phishing emails or apps trying to steal sensitive information. By logging activities on your network, examining logs for malicious activity, and keeping track of user behavior changes, you can avoid potential security threats by spotting them early on.
Network Visibility
By monitoring your internet connection, you can gain visibility into what is happening on your network. You will be able to see which computers are using the most bandwidth, who is accessing sensitive data, and if any suspicious activities are taking place. This information allows you to make sure that all devices connected to your network are secure and that no one is accessing data without authorization.
Avoid Malware Attacks
Malware attacks are becoming increasingly common and are one of the leading causes of data breaches. According to research, there are more than a billion malware programs out there, with over 500,000 being detected every day. When you monitor your internet connection, you can detect suspicious activity that may indicate a malware attack before it becomes a major problem. By identifying these threats early on, you can take steps to mitigate them before any serious damage is done.
Detect Suspicious Activities
Monitoring your internet connection also helps you detect suspicious activities, such as unauthorized access attempts or unusual downloads that could indicate malicious activity.
Why Monitor Your App Data?
More than 80% of cyber attacks occur through apps or software vulnerabilities. That’s a pretty startling statistic. As technology continues to advance, the risk of cyber-attacks only increases. It’s more important than ever to monitor your app data and closely monitor the specific apps using your data.
By monitoring your app data, you can catch any unusual activity or suspicious behavior before it becomes a full-blown attack. This means you’ll be able to take action before any damage. With so much sensitive information being stored and transferred online, it’s critical to stay vigilant and protect yourself from cyber threats.
Blocking App From Sharing Data
Blocking apps from sharing data is essential in protecting your personal information and preventing cyber attacks. To function properly, many apps require access to sensitive information, such as your location, contacts, or photos. However, some apps may misuse this information, leading to the compromise of your personal information.
According to research, about 52% of apps share your data. When you block these apps from sharing data, you can ensure your personal information remains secure and is not misused. One way to block apps from sharing data is by adjusting the privacy settings on your device. On most devices, you can choose which apps can access your location, contacts, photos, and other sensitive information.
You can also revoke access to these permissions at any time. This is a simple but effective way to prevent apps from sharing data without your knowledge. It’s important to note that some apps may not function correctly if they do not have access to certain types of information. Therefore, it’s crucial to assess each app’s permission requests carefully and decide if it’s necessary to grant access to the requested information.
The GlassWire Solution
The GlassWire solution is an innovative software that can help you protect your important data, keep control of your internet usage, and stay on top of the latest cyber threats. It uses a visually-focused dashboard and a friendly interface to make monitoring your computer activities incredibly easy. You can easily identify what applications are using the most bandwidth or accessing cloud accounts, allowing you to swiftly spot any suspicious behavior.
Furthermore, it provides access to powerful features such as a two-way firewall, network connection viewer, and more, enabling you to take ownership of your network security. This ensures a safe browsing experience while giving you greater insight into malicious activity.
Conclusion
Monitoring your internet connection and app activity is crucial to protect your personal information and to prevent cyber attacks. By using tools such as GlassWire and blocking apps from sharing data, you can detect and prevent any suspicious behavior before it can cause harm to your system or personal information. Being proactive and vigilant is key to staying safe in today’s digital world, and monitoring your internet connection is an essential step toward achieving this.
About Chris Taylor: Chris is on the Community Review Board for SANS’s OUCH! (the security awareness newsletter designed for everyone), has given over 470 computer-related presentations at the Ottawa Public Library, and is President of the Ottawa PC Users’ Group.
When you delete a file in Windows, the actual data on disk is not removed. The file is usually moved to the Recycle Bin where it can be easily recovered. Even if you empty the Recycle Bin or bypass the Recycle Bin by holding down the Shift key while deleting files, the data remains on-disk. All that happens is the pointers to the file are removed, making the space available for new files.
Recovering deleted files
Utilities to recover deleted files date back to Unerase in the first version of the Norton Utilities in 1982. They continue to this day with dozens of free and commercial programs available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.
If you are in a high-security situation, please ignore this article. It is intended for the average home or business user whose adversaries are not about to use magnetic force microscope techniques to recover data. If you are likely to have the NSA (or CSIS here in Canada) looking for your deleted data, you need to go well beyond what I recommend here.
Making data unrecoverable
When you want to dispose of a storage device, you should ensure all sensitive data is deleted and unrecoverable. This can be achieved by physical destruction of the storage device: hard disk drive (HDD), solid state drive (SSD), flash drive, etc. or—if you want the storage device to be reusable—by over-writing the data areas of the disk with random data, obliterating the original data.
Some secure deletion programs boast of capabilities such as the Gutmann algorithm, which overwrites all data with 35 passes. For the average computer user, I wouldn’t worry beyond a single pass.
There are many programs available, both free and commercial, for secure data removal. The programs I list are not necessarily the best—they are simply programs that have been around quite a while (have stood the test of time), are free, and have been used successfully either by me or members of the Ottawa PC Users’ Group.
Be careful using secure deletion programs. By their very nature, there is no “undo” button! There are several approaches to overwriting data.
Individual files
If you just want to make a few files unrecoverable, there are programs that can target individual files or folders of files. One example is the free and open-source program File Shredder (https://www.fileshredder.org/). It is very simple and straight-forward to use.
Free space
Storage devices eventually end up with data in all locations on the device: the free space has data that was used for files that have since been deleted. You have no way of knowing what recoverable data might be there. Some programs can target free space and securely overwrite data there. File Shredder is one program that can wipe free space.
Entire disks
If you want to securely delete all data on an entire storage device, HDShredder (https://www.miray-software.com/products/applications/hdshredder.html) is available in free and commercial versions. The free version should be sufficient for the vast majority of users. The website details the additional capabilities in the commercial versions.
Another popular program for securely erasing all data on storage devices is the free and open-source DBAN (https://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/). Blancco acquired DBAN in 2012 and is no longer in development, but remains popular. I recently had occasion to use DBAN to help a friend dispose of an old laptop and it was quite easy to use DBAN to ensure the entire hard drive was securely wiped.
Due to the architecture of the technology, you can not securely wipe SSDs in the same manner as HDDs. If you want to securely delete data from SSDs, check that the software you are using specifies that it works on SSDs. EaseUS has a free version of Partition Manager that can securely erase SSDs.
Rather than destroying or securely wiping your old storage devices, you might want to repurpose them for your own use. Inexpensive drive enclosures are available: you can install your old storage device in one and then plug it into a USB port to use it as an external drive.
While this article details effective means of securely removing data, if you can’t be sure you have completely removed all sensitive files from your device, you might be better off destroying the device rather than disposing of it.
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