If you are an American citizen over the age of 30, it is almost guaranteed that your home address, date of birth, social security information, and much more personally identifiable information (PII) is already exposed and being sold on the darkweb. While PII and credit card data is not quite a "dime a dozen", it's almost there. Nowadays, your personal data is packaged with others' and is a commodity available in bulk to any cyber criminals wanting it.
Unfortunately, the general public still believes that PII and credit card data are the primary targets of cyber criminals. While this information is still stolen on a regular basis, it is important for the public to recognize a bigger picture and threats posed by criminals around the world.
Most criminals are probably not specifically targeting you or your company, but without an effective security posture it is easy to be singled out. Mass scanning tools and distributed systems make finding security weaknesses easier for criminals than ever before.
This is a short list of common threats and attacks that occur when criminals find a security flaw in an organization's systems:
While a few cyber criminals focus on hacktivism and bragging rights, the vast majority are focused on generating income from targets of opportunity. It is important to realize there are many ways for criminals to profit from cyber attacks and they don't need to involve PII or credit card data.
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