This is the conclusion reached by experts at Data Leakage & Breach Intelligence (DLBI) who analyzed the leaks and breaches that were being discovered throughout 2022.
According to representatives of the company, the experts examined almost all leaks and breaches related to Russia in one way or another, both major ones, such as leaks exposing the data from the Russian Post, Yandex.Eats and Delivery Club services, CDEK, Gemotest, Tutu.ru as well as the Kwork marketplace, and 260 smaller ones. Most leaks exposed users’ contact information, some of them exposing passwords and information on the use of various online services.
“After combining the data, eliminating errors, duplicates and information not related to Russian users, it turned out that all the leaks examined exposed a total amount of 99.8 million unique email addresses as well as 109.7 unique phone numbers,” DLBI representatives said.
According to Ashot Oganesyan, founder of the DLBI service, the second indicator is comparable to the population of Russia, given that most people here have only one phone number. “We might say that last year, leaks exposed the data of 75 % of the total Russian population, or 85 % of the working age and elderly population,” Mr. Oganesyan said.
In 2022, an unprecedentedly high number of personal data breaches were detected. According to Roskomnadzor, the number of breaches has risen sharply since early 2022, reaching over 140, with approximately 600 million pieces of information on citizens being exposed online. That said, only four major incidents were detected in the previous year, exposing 2.7 million pieces of information on the Internet.
“Such a sharp increase in the number of leaks is primarily related to the high number of Ukrainian hacktivists’ attacks carried out after the beginning of the special military operation. Meanwhile, many Russian companies, including the largest ones, were resting on their laurels and simply did not find themselves ready to protect their data, which is the reason the breaches were that big,” Mr. Oganesyan believes.
However, he also pointed out that some sectors were largely unaffected by data breaches. “For instance, the financial sector, which has been dealing with both outsider and insider attacks over the past five years, was able to solve the problem, so last year, there were hardly any data breaches experienced by banks and financial organizations,” the expert said.
https://www.interfax.ru/russia/881264
