During the New Year public holidays in Russia, cybercriminals did not rest - from January 1 to 9, 5 TB of personal data of Russians was leaked into open online access. This includes 324,000 email addresses and 274,900 phone numbers, as well as other data.
The large leak was reported by TASS news agency, citing the cybersecurity company, Solar Group. According to their data, the amount of leaked information during these days is 10% higher than in the same period in 2023. The largest portion of the published information is from the financial sector. During the analyzed period, 115.2 million lines from this sector appeared online, which is almost 99% of all information that became publicly available during this time.
Also, during this time, information appeared in a number of media outlets that the Ukrainian group KibOrg had hacked the Alfa-Bank database and published data of 38 million customers. The bank itself denies the leak.
It is noteworthy that some information security experts noted a surge in hacker attacks on Russia in the first quarter of 2024 and their growth by up to 15%. The weak link was predicted to be companies that officially purchase Russian software to comply with legislation, but in practice use familiar foreign software. Due to sanctions, it cannot only be updated in a timely manner, but also serviced in a timely manner, making it vulnerable.