The ‘Optus hacker’ claims they’ve deleted the data. Here’s what experts want you to know

T. Schneider/Shutterstock Shortly after Australian telecommunications company Optus announced the identity data of millions of customers had been stolen, a person claiming to be the hacker announced they would delete the data for US$1 million. When Optus didn’t pay, the purported hacker published 10,000 stolen records and threatened to release ten thousand more every day … Read more

How the world’s biggest dark web platform spreads millions of items of child sex abuse material — and why it’s hard to stop

Shutterstock Child sexual abuse material is rampant online, despite considerable efforts by big tech companies and governments to curb it. And according to reports, it has only become more prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic. This material is largely hosted on the anonymous part of the internet — the “darknet” – where perpetrators can share it … Read more

Here’s how much your personal information is worth to cybercriminals – and what they do with it

The black market for stolen personal information motivates most data breaches. aleksey-martynyuk/iStock via Getty Images Data breaches have become common, and billions of records are stolen worldwide every year. Most of the media coverage of data breaches tends to focus on how the breach happened, how many records were stolen and the financial and legal … Read more