A major cybersecurity breach allegedly exposed sensitive data belonging to the brokerage firm, AKD Securities Limited. As per reports, the hackers have reportedly put the sensitive data of the brokerage firm for sale on dark web marketplaces. The Chief Executive Officer of AKD Securities, Farid Alam, refuted the claims of data leak, as he told Pro Pakistani; “The client’s financial and trading data at AKDSL is end-to-end encrypted and is hosted in an in-house/premises data center behind a firewall. Therefore NO clients’ financial and trading data has been compromised.”
Hackers Allegedly got Access to AKD Securities Most Confidential Data
According to the details, the comprised data allegedly consists of the most sensitive data that is usually intended for confidential purposes only. As per media reports, the data leak shows that the hacker gained access to personal information such as full names, phone numbers, email addresses, residential addresses, bank account details, passwords, marital status, etc.
The alleged compromised data contains information across a sample size of over 1,000 Account Holders that could be used for targeted cyber-attacks, identity theft, phishing attacks, and extortion. Several anonymous tips of the sample data received by the blog contain private information mentioning AKD account holders, hence, confirming the breach.
Also read: Personal Information of Millions of Pakistanis Goes up For Sale on Dark Web
Expert Opinion
According to cybercrime experts, an effective cybercrime protection strategy must consist of two elements: preventing physical access to sensitive data and rendering that data useless if it falls into the wrong hands. According to them, the companies can achieve the latter by always encrypting their data. According to Charles (Chuck) Geigner; “Vulnerability assessment is most definitely an evolving line of work and should be if we want to keep systems and networks secure from outside attacks.”
