6. TalkTalk
When: January
What happened?
The telecoms giant hit the headlines when it confirmed it was investigating a data breach involving the stolen personal information of millions of customers.
Although the hacker involved claimed it swiped the personal data of more than 18.8 million current and former TalkTalk subscribers, TalkTalk itself branded these claims “wholly inaccurate and very significantly overstated”, TechCrunch reported.
Who nominated it, and why?
Red Helix CEO Marion Stewart and Sapphire CEO Ian Thomas both ranked TalkTalk’s breach in their top 5.
For Stewart, it was particularly significant not just due to the reported scale, but also because it was TalkTalk’s second major incident (the first being in 2015, which resulted in a substantial fine from the ICO).
“Repeated breaches like this seriously undermine consumer trust,” she opined.
Channel takeaway:
For Thomas, the breach held a key lesson for the cyber industry.
“It was linked to a third-party supplier’s system, not TalkTalk’s own infrastructure, highlighting the risk from integrated supply chain,” he said.
“Specialist MSPs like Red Helix can help organisations like TalkTalk reduce the risk of third-party breaches and data theft by delivering advanced security platforms, continuous monitoring, threat detection and response services – all underpinned by robust zero trust policies and regular testing exercises,” Stewart added.
Five cyber-attacks were considered more significant by our leadership panel. See next page for more…
