The hyper-connectivity of the internet age has facilitated business, audience and market growth for corporations around the world. It’s also opened them up to new vulnerabilities. According to the Ponemon Institute’s “2017 Cost of Data Breach Study: Global Analysis,” the average total cost of a data breach is $3.62 million.
Globally, cybercrime damages are slated to cost $6 trillion by 2021—a number that doesn’t take into account the significant portion of cybercrime thought to go undetected or unreported. The resulting loss of money, time, productivity and reputation are just a few of the reasons IBM’s CEO Ginni Rometty called cybercrime “the greatest threat to … every company in the world.”
The amount of data hackers can steal is alarming—the perpetrators behind the infamous 2014 Sony breach claimed to have stolen 100 terabytes from the company (200 gigabytes were released to the public). One of the aspects that makes cybercrime dangerous is the innovative ways hackers can extract data from seemingly secure systems, even ones that aren’t connected to the internet.
Despite outwardly impenetrable setups, each year security researchers discover new ways to siphon encrypted data and sensitive materials from such systems. Top10vpn used their research and real cyberattacks to compile a list of the craziest ways hackers can steal data, below.