Shocking new analysis exposes Bay Area risk-level to cyberattacks
A Bay Area city just got crowned America’s most vulnerable cyberattack target according to a new analysis.
Despite being considered the tech capital of the world, the Bay Area dominated a new list of America’s most vulnerable cyberattack targets, claiming three of the top four spots.
Oakland and San Francisco came in first and second, respectively, while San Jose was ranked fourth. The study was conducted by a software company –– also based in the Bay –– called ShareVault.
“Oakland ranks first with 102.25 breaches per 10,000 residents. San Francisco follows in second, with 40% of its industries considered high risk, while San Jose ranks fourth with a 39% high-risk industry concentration and the 10th-highest breach rate,” the Manufacturing Business Technology (MBT) wrote in its findings.
“Long Beach ranks sixth with the third-highest breach rate and fifth-highest cyber vacancy rate. Sacramento follows in seventh after recording 84.12 breaches per 10,000 residents, the fourth-highest level nationally,” it continued.
The company conducted the study by analyzing 58 major cities across the country using certain metrics such as cybersecurity job availability, number of employees in cybersecurity-related jobs, data breaches, and the concentration of high-risk industries to see which cyber threats might have the biggest impact.
“California ranks highly because its companies and individuals present the two things that hackers value and target the most –– data and money,” the editorial director of MBT told KTVU.
Based out of Los Gatos, ShareVault specializes in providing secure Virtual Data Rooms that helps companies partake in high-stakes transactions while protecting sensitive business information.
This study comes as a Bay Area city declared a state of emergency as a result of a major cyberattack back in March. Foster City had to suspend city government services and moved its entire network offline.
Hackers also breached into Canvas –– a learning management systems for thousands of universities across the world –– and stole vast amounts of student information in late April and early May.