Just months after celebrating its 158th anniversary, UK-based KNP Logistics Group was hit by the Akira ransomware gang. The attackers found one employee without multi-factor authentication, guessed the password, and it was all downhill from there. The hackers then used ransomware to encrypt the company’s entire digital presence, and then went on to destroy its backups and disaster recovery systems. The group demanded £5 million (approximately $6.7 million) in ransom. The company didn’t have that kind of money, and despite calling in specialists and trying to recover their backups, the company’s operations froze, and within a matter of weeks, the company went under, and over 700 people lost their jobs. Your data is big business – and scammers are only getting smarter. Protect yourself by requesting data deletion from brokers, using personal data removal services, and staying alert for fake sites (even ones posing as the FBI). Report scams to authorities when you can, and remember...