Cybersecurity Roundup: Data Breaches from the First Half of 2022 (Part Two)

The beginning of 2022 has presented the standard fare as it comes to experiencing data breaches, as well as some novel actors in cybercrime. Keeping up to date on the landscape of data security is a core aspect of the job of IT professionals. In Part One of our Cybersecurity Roundup series, we went through an overview of Business and Healthcare security incidents, though arguably some of the more interesting breaches this year took place within the Public and Political spheres.

Public Data Breaches

There are massive amounts of data stored by governmental and educational organizations; and when an organization like that is breached, there is the potential that millions of records can be accessed. Some notable instances of the year to date include:

• The International Committee of the Red Cross was the victim of a cyber attack, in which an unknown malicious actor gained access to details of around 515,000 “highly vulnerable” people, which temporarily put on pause efforts to reunite families separated by war and other atrocities. There are some indications that this attack may be state-sponsored due to the complexity of the attack and techniques used. The International Committee of the Red Cross pleaded with the hackers to not sell the information to bad actors who might use the information to cause further harm to the individuals attempting to locate their families after tragedy, and stated that “We are all appalled and perplexed that this humanitarian information would be targeted and compromised.”
• A security vulnerability in a State Bar of California public website that aggregates nationwide court case records caused confidential information to be publicly accessible. This impacted roughly 260,000 non-public attorney discipline case records, 60,000 public State Bar court case records, and potentially information from other jurisdictions. The case profile data included case number, file date, case type, case status, and respondent and complaining witness names, but not full case records, per the state.
• Around 820,000 New York public school students had their data compromised when digital education platform Illuminate Education suffered a multi-day outage that was initially described as a “security incident” when the initial event happened in January. It was later announced that data compromised included names, birthdates, state student ID numbers, genders, ethnicities, languages spoken, which teachers and courses each child had, grades, and in some cases if students were in IEP, socio-economically disadvantaged, or the National School Lunch Program. It may be the largest breach of U.S. student information ever.
• A May 2022 announcement by the Texas Department of Insurance revealed that a recent audit showed there was a security issue which potentially compromised data around 1,800,000 Texans. The personal data was available from March of 2019 to January of 2022, though auditors stated they did not think it was accessed by “unauthorized individuals.”

Politically Tinged Data Breaches

Information is power, and networks and servers are a wealth of private data that, in improper hands, can have a massive impact on politics. From hacktivism to state-level attacks and defenses, data breaches can have far reaching consequences. Some examples from the first half of 2022 include:

• In the Phillipines, the Manila Bulletin published information in January on a potential compromise of sensitive voter information after hackers gained access to servers of the Commission on Elections. A Commissioner, Rowena Guanzon, initially maintained that the information about the breach was not true, though later in the year three hackers were arrested after the theft of 60 gigabytes data and boasting they could control the next elections.
• During the Ottawa Freedom Convoy in Canada of 2022, GiveSendGo, a crowdfunding site, was hacked after publicly stating the would allow fundraising for the truckers to be moved to their platform after GoFundMe froze campaigns for the same protestors. Hackers took control of the site, redirected it to a page condemning the truckers taking part in the protest, and posted the personal details of the approximately 90,000 people who had donated to the campaign on the site.
• One of the biggest events that happened in the first two quarters of 2022 the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The ground invasion was preceded by heightened tension and cyber attacks, to the point where agencies within the United States issued warnings about Russian cyberattacks as Ukrainian banks and governmental websites and servers were attacked. As Russian and Ukrainian hacktivists battled for control of websites, routed phone calls, and hacked TV stations in both countries, cybersecurity professionals and foreign governments took note of Russia’s offensive strikes and Ukraine’s defensive posture as an early example of how cyberwarfare might develop in a 21st century context. The head of US Cyber Command, Gen. Paul Nakasone, confirmed that the United States was supporting Ukraine and NATO allies with offensive, defensive, and informational cyber operations, touting a “hunt forward” technique. Some attacks, given the context of the current war in Ukraine, seem to have a political bent, such as the cyberattack on Canadian-based PressReader, and Russia’s “intense” cyberattacks on Lithuania for maintaining EU sanctions on goods and pausing overland transports of goods to Russian territories through the country. As the conflict continues and cyberwarfare becomes more sophisticated, the need for strong digital defense on the part of both Ukrainian and Russian governments continues to increase. Countries like China have watched both Ukraine and Russia, as well as the rest of the world’s response to the invasion, potentially taking notes on weaknesses in their cyberwarfare strategy and defensive capabilities. As this conflict continues, the lessons learned in Eastern Europe will reverberate across Asia and beyond, impacting the geopolitical balance around the world for years to come.

Data breaches are part of the fabric of the modern world, but you can protect yourself by maintaining good data privacy hygiene, keeping all your computer programs updated, and investing in software that protects your data access points. Keep up to date with emerging malicious actors on the cybersecurity scene, and take all the necessary steps to protect your data so you are not included on the list of victims from the second half of 2022!