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FINAL WORD
New Exabeam
research
demonstrates
web browser risk
to business
Ignorance isn’t bliss when we learn of
the devious tactics hackers use to extract
data. It is becoming vital to be aware of
the methods hackers are using to steal
information, meaning we need to be
more mindful of our online activities.
Ryan Benson, Senior Threat Researcher
at Exabeam explains this in more detail.
W
hen the Strava fitness tracker uncovered not only the
exercise routines of military personnel, but the location
of military bases, it showed just how easily individual
data points can be combined to paint a more detailed picture.
The company’s ‘heat map’, billed as the ‘largest, richest and
most beautiful dataset of its kind’, visualises data from one billion
activities, three trillion latitude/longitude points and covers a total
distance of 27 billion kilometres. It is a visualisation of Strava’s
global athlete network and it includes trillions of GPS points
uploaded to the platform.
But despite this almost unfathomable pool of data, analyst Nathan
Ruser – a member of the Institute for United Conflict Analysts
– demonstrated that with the right eye, the data can be cross-
referenced with known military installations, as well as suspected
combat zone locations, to identify the military personnel jogging
routes, patrols and forward operating bases.
This obviously presents a significant security risk for the military,
but the story prompted many other Strava users to re-think their
privacy settings. As consumers, we are often unaware of the data
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