In the last week of June, three companies with enormous databases had their information seized: Adidas, a leading sports gear retailer, TicketMaster, a leading event ticket vendor, and Exactis, a data compiler.

First to get attacked was TicketMaster, who had 40,000 consumers’ data compromised on June 23, 2018. TicketMaster openly wrote about the data breach, claiming it to have affected less than 5% of its global customer base [1]. The breach affected only customers from the United Kingdom but spanned over several months from February to June 23, 2018. If a consumer bought anything on their website within those months, personal and/or payment information may have been accessed by an unknown third party. After reporting the breach, TicketMaster emailed all users they believe were affected, and offered a free 12-month identity monitoring service.

Adidas fell victim on June 26, 2018 by another unidentified third party. An Adidas spokesperson claimed that “a few million” consumers were affected [2]. Limited data was taken, including contact information, usernames and encrypted passwords. Adidas also claimed that there was no reason to believe that any credit card information was taken.

The least known but most surprising was Exactis. The data compiler and aggregator left around 340 million of consumers’ personal data open and accessible to anyone looking for it. Most disturbing is that the data was very specific in nature. Each record had information concerning personal attributes like phone numbers, email addresses, if you are a smoker, what size clothes you wear, etc [3]. The database was first discovered by Vinny Troia, the founder of a New York-based security company. Troia contacted Exactis, as well as the FBI when he discovered the disturbing collection. Exactis has not since given a statement concerning the leak, but the collection is no longer accessible. It’s unclear whether this database was used by cyber criminals, but Troia believes he cannot be the only person to stumble across such a huge collection.

Once more, businesses are reminded that data security is not an option, but an obligation. When a business has proper protection, it is also a deliverable sales pitch for new potential clients. Security can give a business that extra edge over the competition and could be the reason why it continues to grow.

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