Theft of personally identifiable data and Intellectual property key concern: McAfee report

NEW DELHI: Data theft has emerged as one of the biggest concerns as cybercriminals are increasingly going after more critical data for greater leverage over companies. In September 2018, personal information including credit card details of 380,000 passengers of British Airways was reportedly stolen. A cyber attack on Singapore’s largest healthcare institution, SingHealth, in July 2018, compromised non-medical details of 1.5 million patients, including the country’s Prime Minister.

According to McAfee’s data exfiltration report, called Grand Theft Data II – The Drivers and Shifting State of Data Breaches, published today, 43% of the participants were greatly concerned about theft of personally identifiable information and intellectual property. On the other hand, 30% found theft of payment card details more distressing, even though the report claims that payment card is not a big target because of new payment technologies and improved fraud detection systems.