PII covers information that identifies people, making its collection, storage, and disclosure central to privacy protection and breach response.
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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.
Robert Purbeck, a 45-year-old man from Idaho, has been sentenced to ten years in prison for hacking at least 19 organizations in the United States, stealing the personal data of more than 132,000 people, and multiple extortion attempts. [...]
Misconfigurations in Microsoft Power Pages granting excessive access permissions expose sensitive data, risking PII to unauthorized users
DOJ Accuses Alleged Hackers of Stealing Terabytes of Data from Snowflake VictimsThe Justice Department unsealed an indictment against alleged hackers Connor Moucka and John Binns, accusing them of stealing data from the cloud platform Snowflake, extorting millions in bitcoin and stealing sensitive personal information from over 165 organizations and millions of individuals.
Have I Been Pwned warns that an alleged data breach exposed the personal information of 56,904,909 accounts for Hot Topic, Box Lunch, and Torrid customers. [...]