PII covers information that identifies people, making its collection, storage, and disclosure central to privacy protection and breach response.
Search across headline titles and summaries.
Background for this topic.
PII (personally identifiable information) is information that identifies a person directly or can do so when combined with other data. Direct identifiers include names, government identification numbers, passport details, and email addresses; indirect identifiers can include birth dates, precise location, or unique account attributes. The term is used broadly in security, but its legal scope varies: laws and regulations may use different definitions, such as “personal data” under the GDPR or protected health information under HIPAA.
PII is a high-value target because unauthorized access or disclosure can enable identity fraud, targeted phishing, or privacy harm. It may be exposed through compromised applications, cloud storage, logs, endpoints, or third parties. Practitioners should inventory and classify it, collect and retain only what is needed, restrict access, and protect it with encryption or tokenization where appropriate. Monitoring and tested procedures for investigating exposure are important, while retention, deletion, and notification duties depend on the applicable jurisdiction and sector.
Meta's new subscription model points out the need for clearer and stricter regulations — ones that prioritize consumer privacy and control of personal data.
Also: Personal Data Theft From OKX; Terraform-SEC Settlement TermsThis week, the Norwegian government froze funds from the Ronin hack, a hacker stole personal data of OKX users, Terraform Labs' SEC released settlement terms, "Ethereum's most secure wallet" was breached, Orbit Chain spoke about its hacked funds and scammers exploited AI hype.
The New York Times notified an undisclosed number of contributors that some of their sensitive personal information was stolen and leaked after its GitHub repositories were breached in January 2024. [...]
The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) is warning that it suffered a ransomware attack on its software testing environment and is now investigating whether any personal information was exposed. [...]
U.S. food chain giant Panera Bread is notifying employees of a data breach after unknown threat actors stole their sensitive personal information in a March ransomware attack. [...]
Last week, the notorious hacker gang, ShinyHunters, sent shockwaves across the globe by allegedly plundering 1.3 terabytes of data from 560 million Ticketmaster users. This colossal breach, with a price tag of $500,000, could expose the personal information of a massive swath of the live event company's clientele, igniting a firestorm of concern and outrage. A massive data breach Let’s
The two jurisdictions will work together to investigate the credential-stuffing attack that put the personal data of millions at risk.