Verizon Report Confirms: Hacktivist Stole 100 Million Records

If that number astonishes you it should. In a study published this week by Verizon, it’s been reported that hacktivists like Anonymous and Lulzsec were responsible for compromising 100 million records.

Now to put the power of the hacktivist groups in perspective; out of an estimated 855 data breach incidents last year, only 25 of them were attributed to hacktivist groups. While they were only responsible for 2% of the data breaches they were by far the most detrimental. Their 2% of data breaches resulted in 58% of the 174 million total records stolen in 2011.

More after the break



Hactivism saw it’s biggest growth in 2011, Verizon reports:

The most significant change we saw in 2011 was the rise of “hacktivism” against larger organizations worldwide. The frequency and regularity of cases tied to activist groups that came through our doors in 2011 exceeded the number worked in all previous years combined.

Verizon went on to say:
That is not to say that hacktivsm is new; the term has been standard lexicon since it was coined by the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker collective in the late 90’s. Back then, it mostly consisted of website defacements, coordinated denial of service attacks, and other antics to express disagreement, obtain bragging rights, or “just because.” The major shift that occurred in 2011 was that activist groups added data breaches to their repertoire with much heightened intensity and publicity.

In the summer of 2011 the FBI arrested the presumed leader of the hactivist group Lulzsec, Hector Xavier Monsegur who goes by the online handle Sabu. Sabu quickly agreed to work with the FBI for a reduction in sentencing. With that it was assumed that Lulzsec was out of commission. However new evidence has surfaced saying that Lulzsec will go back into service next week on April 1st.

In 2011 hactivists were successful in compromising large numbers of data and at the same time, achieved their goals of bringing awareness to the issues that sparked their hacktivist activity.

source: Verizon via ZD Net

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