The deletion of the stolen Medibank data from Zservers in Russia is a window into the industrialisation of global cyber crime and illustrates how organisations like Zservers are providing services (in this case secure data storage) for the criminals who steal personal information and sensitive data.
The global cyber crime 'economy' – a $9.5 trillion behemoth – represents the world’s third-largest economy by GDP, according to Cybersecurity Ventures, trailing only the US and China.
The industrialisation of cyber crime is truly global and not limited the 'usual suspects'. In the first cyber crime index aiming to identify where cyber crime is committed (rather than where it occurs) its probably no surprise that Russia tops the list, it's followed by Ukraine, China, the USA, Nigeria, and Romania. Australia comes in at number 34.
The scale and global breadth of cyber crime coupled with its value means its will continue to grow therefore organisations (and indivudals) need to continue to invest in data protection. Simple steps including knowing what data you actually have, where it is stored, if its secure, if you really need it and implementing data governance are steps that should be if taken immediately they haven't been already.
The mindset-set in relation to a potential data breach - more than ever - should be 'when' NOT 'if'!
If interested, some further reading:
The article in todays Age is a good insight to the work done to delete the data helpd by Zserver:
A good summary of the cyber crime index in this artcile from UNSW: https://www.unsw.edu.au/news/2024/04/world-first--cybercrime-index--ranks-countries-by-cybercrime-thr0
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