According to researchers from the University of North Carolina’s Kenan Flagler Business School, this increase is due to the fact that retail customers are less brand loyal than consumers in other industries 5.Ĭustomers’ PII-related data is the most valuable data type that hackers can extract from security breaches, costing $150 per record according to IBM’s 2020 Cost of Data Breach Report. For the retail industry, this loss triples to nine percent within only 30 days of the breach announcement. If companies have a data breach caused by stolen credentials, they can lose up to three percent of their overall market value long-term.Percent of Manufacturers With Data Breaches in 2020 73 percent of these incidents were motivated by financial incentives, while with 27 percent of these incidents, the motive was espionage 4. In the manufacturing industry specifically, malware that stole credentials and dumped passwords created 922 cybersecurity incidents in 2020.However, for the U.S, the average cost was the highest worldwide at $8.64 million 3. Internationally, the average cost of a data breach in 2020 for businesses was $3.86 million, according to IBM.For businesses, hackers can start disinformation campaigns against companies, sharing their data with competitors and storing it for a ransom 1.Ĭompromised passwords caused 80 percent of all data breaches in 2019 2, resulting in financial losses for both businesses and consumers.Identity theft can result in further financial losses or difficulty getting loans or employment. They will use this information either to steal money from the user directly or to steal their identity. After gaining access to a user’s credentials, many hackers will log into their accounts to steal more of their personally identifiable information (PII) like their names, addresses, and bank account information.Not having secure passwords has its consequences, which include but are not limited to: A password shouldn’t be the word “password” or the same letter or number repeated.A password shouldn’t contain any consecutive letters or numbers.It’s also best not to include any information that can be accessed on social media like kids’ or pets’ names. A password shouldn’t include any of the user’s personal information like their address or phone number.A password shouldn’t be shared with any other account. A password should include a combination of letters, numbers, and characters.A password should be 16 characters or more our password-related research has found that 45 percent of Americans use passwords of eight characters or less, which are not as secure as longer passwords.The best practices for creating secure passwords are: We built this tool to help you better understand password security. After stealing credentials, cybercriminals can use passwords to start disinformation campaigns against companies, use people’s payment information for purchases, and spy on users through WiFi-connected security cameras. Google enforcing 2FA as a mandatory part of its service should steer the mainstream towards better personal security hygiene.Data breaches and identity theft are on the rise, and the cause is often compromised passwords. With the ubiquity of password-pinching malware, there's no doubt that a move towards 2FA is a necessary step in the right direction. Google does the hard work for you, even automatically populating sites' login forms to save you the hassle.Īnd if you're concerned about moving existing passwords, the company's password import feature eases the process of funneling your passwords from various third-party sites into Google's Password Manager. This reduces the time needed to come up with complex alphanumeric passwords and then remember them. Google's Password Manager, baked into Android, Chrome and now iOS, helps create more robust passwords, synchronizing them across your favorite apps and sites. Regardless, strong passwords still remain important alongside 2FA. Password breaches are now so commonplace that Google's move to make 2FA mandatory perhaps seems overdue.
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