New Year, New Personal Data Stolen

NetLib Security doesn’t have a SoundCloud account to promote if you see this article, but if we did, we probably wouldn’t be too thrilled right now.  The platform recently confirmed a data breach in which millions of accounts (around 20% of users) were put at risk through unauthorized activity with an internal service dashboard.  Passwords and financial data were thankfully not exposed, but such a volume of stolen email addresses and other user details could be used in widespread phishing or other social engineering schemes.  

SoundCloud says they’ve since begun work on reviewing access controls and boosting their threat detection and monitoring.  Some reports place blame on the ShinyHunters hacking group attempting to extort the company with the stolen data.  This is the group notorious for a number of breaches, from stealing 500 GB of Microsoft source code to the massive Snowflake campaign that affected companies like TicketMaster and Neiman Marcus.

Meanwhile, the healthcare industry in 2025 continued to be a top target for cyber criminals.  A data breach in May hit the Covenant Health organization, a healthcare firm that operates hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living homes, among others.  After months of investigation (still ongoing), Covenant has announced the total number of affected patients to be around 478,000.  Exposed data potentially included names, addresses, Social Security numbers, treatment details, and other types of medical records or health insurance info.

Another hacking group is named as this story’s culprit: the Qilin ransomware group, which, despite the name, is a Russian-speaking cybercrime outfit responsible for attacks around the world.  Indeed, Qilin has claimed responsibility for this incident, stealing 852 GB of data from nearly 1.35 million files. 

Healthcare last year, once again, for the 14th consecutive year, remained the most expensive industry for data breaches.  Worst of all was in the US, where the average cost for a healthcare breach was $9.8 million, far beyond the global average.  Medical device vulnerabilities and the need for strong protections like encryption are nothing new.  Artificial intelligence issues have exacerbated an already complex problem, however, whether through tools hackers use to crack through a network, or simply unauthorized AI tools adopted within an organization itself.  These threats allow for automated attacks at scale like never before.

To keep up with the acceleration of cybercrime technologies in the new year, organizations must be proactive with embedded and rapid security measures.  As always, but also more than ever, data security must be an integral part of operations rather than an afterthought or reaction. 

Encryption will continue to be of the utmost importance for when the cyber thieves and their new toys break through the outer defenses.  NetLib Security’s Encryptionizer software provides transparent data encryption on servers, legacy systems, devices and distributed applications with no additional programming and minimal impact on performance.  It’s never too early to stay protected; don’t wait until it’s too late.