The largest dental insurance system in the United States was hit by a phishing attack. The attacker obtained personal information of patients. How do Slovak companies protect their identities?
Delta Dental has confirmed a security incident that took place at the turn of 2018 and 2019. The attacker gained access to the employee account of one of the employees, which gave him weekly access to the personal data of all policyholders. The company does not disclose how many names, addresses, or social security numbers were actually leaked. However, it is already offering clients several benefits as an excuse.
Cases of so-called phishing are increasing, and they do not avoid Slovakia either. Police statistics record hundreds of cases per year, and these are only reported phishing attacks.
Phishing is one of the most widespread cybersecurity threats today. Simply put, through phishing, a fraudster tries to lure personal data such as name, address, social security number, passwords, or usernames from the victim using bait in electronic communication.
The most famous Slovak cases include attacks on clients of Slovak banks. Both Tatra banka and J&T Banka have repeatedly confirmed the increasing number of attempts to obtain client data in the past. The most common were fraudulent emails, in which a fictitious bank employee, under the pretext of verifying personal data, tried to obtain the largest possible package of information about clients. Cases of fictitious verification of data when logging into internet banking were also frequent.
The primary goal of the attacks is to obtain enough information for the attacker to be able to access the victim's internet banking, from where he would steal funds. In addition to this motive, however, the trade in personal data is also common. These are sold on the black market and are used in fraudulent attempts to obtain a loan or other product bound by the obligation to provide personal data.
Slovak banks use modern security technologies on several levels to protect themselves from potential attacks, which prevent hackers from trying to break into the bank's network directly. Products like DECEUS, from Slovak company ANASOFT, similarly make it harder for hackers to break into a network and, if successful, can even identify the presence of hackers on the network. However, new attacks still require improvements and upgrades to existing security technologies.
