The City of London Police has confirmed
the arrest of a 32-year-old employee in connection with a high-profile data
breach at Sage.
The woman was apprehended at Heathrow Airport, as
part of the force’s “ongoing fraud investigation” into the incident at the
accounting and payroll software company.
This arrest all but confirms that the unauthorized
access to Sage’s systems was as a result of internal security shortcomings.
In announcing that an incident had taken place
earlier this week, Sage had revealed that access to data had occurred as a
result of an internal login.
As has been reported, the data breach – or data leak to be more specific – may have affected around
280 businesses.
This latest data leak goes to highlight how
commonplace these security incidents are becoming, drawing further attention to
the importance of good cybersecurity.
Not only are their internal threats, there are also
external ones too. For example, the recent spate of data breaches at well-known
companies like LinkedIn and Tumblr resulted in a spike in online fraudulent
activity.
This resulted in the Internet Crime Complaint
Center issuing a public service announcement in June, warning people to be vigilant in the face of opportunistic
fraudsters.
In partnership with Get Safe Online, the City of
London Police is today (Thursday 18th) taking to the streets of the UK’s capital
to raise awareness of online safety.
Detective Inspector Katie Balls said: “Cybercrime
is constantly on the rise and we need to do everything we can to stop online
criminals from taking advantage of people in the city.”
She later added: “It has been predicted that 80% of
fraud and cybercrime is preventable if individuals and businesses follow simple
advice.”