The Aftermath of Data Breaches

PII compromised in a data breach could be used or sold for identity theft schemes. Dark web marketplaces, forums, and websites offer a spectrum of products and services that monetize stolen personal and financial data, corporate and social media account details, as well as counterfeit documents and money. The dark web also provides an arsenal of malicious tools and malware that, combined with this personal information, can allow threat actors to create official documents or identities to commit identity theft or launch cyberattacks. Threat actors may use compromised PII to launch cyberattacks in social engineering attempts via phishing emails, vishing, SMiShing, compromised websites, and social media scams to compromise accounts, steal funds, steal additional PII or financial information, open new fraudulent accounts, access computer networks and resources, and perform additional cyberattacks.
For example, Charles Schwab Corp., the parent company of TD Ameritrade, Inc., recently disclosed a data breach resulting from exploited vulnerabilities discovered in the MOVEit file transfer software. The customer data stored on TD Ameritrade’s server was compromised and, therefore, impacted customers may be subjected to an increased risk of identity theft and other malicious activity. Other organizations affected by the MOVEit vulnerability to date include various financial institutions, British Airways, Shell PLC, and more. Furthermore, the Cl0p ransomware group published Shell’s data to the dark web after Shell refused to pay the ransom demand; therefore, TD Ameritrade’s data may similarly be at risk. Also, the Schwab/TD Ameritrade merger conversion is ongoing until Labor Day weekend of 2023, which may enable threat actors to target and exploit potential victims in social engineering schemes, such as fraudulent merger updates, security account alerts, and account updates.