Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Fewer Slogans, More Habits
October 1, 2024Reading the 2024 National Cyber Threat Assessment as an SMB
October 30, 2024In October 2024, the Internet Archive suffered a data breach exposing user account information, alongside disruptive denial-of-service attacks against its services. A widely loved nonprofit with limited resources found itself managing a breach, an outage, and public communication all at once.
What a smaller organization can learn
The Internet Archive is closer in resources to the mid-sized and nonprofit organizations we work with across Canada, which makes its experience instructive. When account data leaks, the immediate risk is credential stuffing: attackers take exposed email addresses and try the same passwords against other services.
Breach-readiness fundamentals
- Store passwords properly with strong, modern hashing.
- Plan your notification now, knowing your obligations under PIPEDA.
- Force resets and encourage MFA quickly after exposure.
Takeaway: Users judge you far more on your response than on the fact that a breach happened. Decide in advance how you will detect, contain, notify, and communicate.