According to Webber Insurance Services in the first 28 days of 2025 there have been five notable data breaches affecting Australia:
Spectrum Medical Imaging – January 2025
Sydney medical practice cyber incident claimed by INC Ransom
Evidn – January 2025
Everest ransomware gang lists Aussie company Evidn as a victim | Hackers claim to have stolen 50 gigabytes from an applied behavioural science firm that works closely with the Queensland government.
Volkswagen – January 2025
Almost 800k Volkswagen EV owners data exposed
SquareX – January 2025
SquareX reveals critical breach of Cyberhaven extension | SquareX has revealed a critical browser security incident targeting Chrome Extension developers, leading to a major compromise of Cyberhaven’s browser extension.
MediSecure – January 2025
Company at centre of data breach revealed.
That's what bad actors across the digital universe can inflict on unsuspecting people engaging with online private businesses or government agencies.
However, when one adds in the fact that so many Internet users voluntarily access a wide range of services which require a combination of either email address, password and/or pin number, then it sometimes feels like we are just scattering information far and wide.
So perhaps now is a good time to check on how often a four digit combination chosen as an easy to remember pin number is not as unique as we might like to believe?
ABC NEWS, 28 January 2025:
The last line of security for much of your digital life probably isn’t as secure as you think.
Whether it’s to unlock your smartphone, access your online banking or get cash out of the ATM, a four-digit PIN is often there to keep your secrets and your money safe.
It’s an important little code, but not all choices are equally secure.
That’s why we analysed 29 million of them from Have I Been Pwned? – an Australian-run site that helps people all over the world find out if they’ve been affected by data breaches.
The most commonly used PINs turned out to be staggeringly popular, meaning they’re particularly easy to guess when phones and bank cards fall into the wrong hands.
The top 50 codes to avoid
These are the 50 most popular codes in the full Have I Been Pwned? dataset, in order of popularity.
Ranking |
Code |
Popularity |
|---|---|---|
1 |
1234 |
9.0% |
2 |
1111 |
1.6% |
3 |
0000 |
1.1% |
4 |
1342 |
0.6% |
5 |
1212 |
0.4% |
6 |
2222 |
0.3% |
7 |
4444 |
0.3% |
8 |
1122 |
0.3% |
9 |
1986 |
0.3% |
10 |
2020 |
0.3% |
11 |
7777 |
0.3% |
12 |
5555 |
0.3% |
13 |
1989 |
0.3% |
14 |
9999 |
0.2% |
15 |
6969 |
0.2% |
16 |
2004 |
0.2% |
17 |
1010 |
0.2% |
18 |
4321 |
0.2% |
19 |
6666 |
0.2% |
20 |
1984 |
0.2% |
21 |
1987 |
0.2% |
22 |
1985 |
0.2% |
23 |
8888 |
0.2% |
24 |
2000 |
0.2% |
25 |
1980 |
0.2% |
26 |
1988 |
0.2% |
27 |
1982 |
0.2% |
28 |
2580 |
0.2% |
29 |
1313 |
0.2% |
30 |
1990 |
0.2% |
31 |
1991 |
0.2% |
32 |
1983 |
0.2% |
33 |
1978 |
0.2% |
34 |
1979 |
0.2% |
35 |
1995 |
0.2% |
36 |
1994 |
0.2% |
37 |
1977 |
0.2% |
38 |
1981 |
0.2% |
39 |
3333 |
0.2% |
40 |
1992 |
0.2% |
41 |
1975 |
0.2% |
42 |
2005 |
0.2% |
43 |
1993 |
0.2% |
44 |
1976 |
0.2% |
45 |
1996 |
0.2% |
46 |
2002 |
0.2% |
47 |
1973 |
0.2% |
48 |
2468 |
0.2% |
49 |
1998 |
0.1% |
50 |
1974 |
0.1% |
