DATA4000 Introduction to Business Analytics

DATA4000 Assignment Help

Introduction to Business Analytics Assignment help

Background
“HSBC Bank, the seventh-largest banking and financial services organizations in the
world and the largest in Europe, has been breached by hackers. The bank is now
sending letters to an undisclosed number of customers notifying them that hackers have
their data.
In a notification template submitted to the California Attorney General”s Office, HSBC
said it became aware that online accounts were accessed by unauthorized parties
sometime between October 4 and October 14, 2018.
“When HSBC discovered your online account was impacted, we suspended online
access to prevent further unauthorized entry of your account,” the notice reads. “You
may have received a call or email from us so we could help you change your online
banking credentials and access your account. We apologize for this inconvenience.
HSBC takes this very seriously and the security of your information is very important to
us.”
HSBC adds (emphasis ours), “The information that may have been accessed
includes your full name, mailing address, phone number, email address, date of birth,
account numbers, account types, account balances, transaction history, payee account
information, and statement history where available.”
The bank provides no details of the breach, such as how the attackers managed to
infiltrate its systems and then exfiltrate customer data. It does say, however, that its first
action after containing the breach was to enhance the authentication process for HSBC
Personal Internet Banking. This suggests the breach may have involved credential
stuffing (where large numbers of previously-breached credentials are “stuffed” into login
forms until they are potentially matched to an existing account), or a vulnerability in the
bank”s two-factor-authentication (2FA) process.
On a slightly more positive note, customers are told HSBC is offering a complementary
year of credit card monitoring via Identity Guard, which monitors and protects credit data,
but also alerts users to activities that could indicate identity theft. Customers must sign
up for the freebie within 90 days, or they won”t be eligible after that window is closed.