{"id":222513,"date":"2026-05-29T12:54:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T16:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/29\/the-same-data-thats-out-there-about-you-can-also-be-used-against-you-and-now-it-is\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T13:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T17:00:09","slug":"the-same-data-thats-out-there-about-you-can-also-be-used-against-you-and-now-it-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/29\/the-same-data-thats-out-there-about-you-can-also-be-used-against-you-and-now-it-is\/","title":{"rendered":"The same data that\u2019s out there about you can also be used against you and now it is"},"content":{"rendered":"

The same data that\u2019s out there about you can also be used against you and now it is<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/federalnewsnetwork.com\/cybersecurity\/2026\/05\/the-same-data-thats-out-there-about-you-can-also-be-used-against-you-and-now-it-is\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-29 12:54:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: federalnewsnetwork.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. Terry Gerton This latest incident, the Handala group, has gone from hacking systems to targeting people directly. Tell us what you know about this situation.
\nRon Zayas So there\u2019s two things to understand here. One is that this is a common thread of what\u2019s going on. It\u2019s very hard to go after servers. They\u2019re much more hardened. It\u2019s very hard to go after organizations per se. So why not go to the soft underbelly, which are the people who make up those organizations? So dirty secret number one is that Handala, if they were the ones who did this, aren\u2019t doing anything different than what other hackers are doing. They\u2019re going after individuals, targeting them to get into the organization. The other dirty secret in all of this is that the information that they\u2019ve released can probably be bought commercially by almost anybody in this country at any time. That\u2019s the real dirty secret.]]><\/p>\n

Terry Gerton So tell us more about how they pulled all of that perhaps commonly available, or at least publicly available, data together to target individual service members.
\nRon Zayas So let\u2019s understand that information is a chain rather than milestones along the way. So first of all, if I know where you work, and for maybe people in the military that\u2019s not always the most public information, but if you are applying for credit, if you are applying to do something, who your employer is, is using public information. Even if you\u2019re in the Military. So that\u2019s number one. All of that information is reported by credit agencies and then there are data brokers who pull this information together, buy it from all these different sources and then make it available to anybody who\u2019s willing to pay. People finder sites, if you\u2019re familiar with sites like Spokeo and BeenVerified, they buy information from these data brokers and they make it available to individuals. But there\u2019s this whole ecosystem of gathering information. And if you think about somebody\u2019s employer, if you\u2019re in the military, it\u2019s the military. Then put the chain of information together. Most of these profiles will have anywhere from 200 to 2000 pieces of information about you. So it\u2019ll include your family members. It\u2019ll include your phone number. It will include what apps you have signed up for. Put those pieces together and you start seeing how I can find out who\u2019s in the military. I can find out who their family is. I can look at their social media. If you had somebody in the military that was deployed somewhere, you would probably use social media to contact them, to talk about them, to give them the support, the things we ought to be doing to supporting family and loved ones when they\u2019re far away. But this information can now be used since I know you\u2019re the spouse of, the child of, the sister of. Now that I know that, I can monitor your social media and find out where that person might be. If I know what apps they have, I can pull that all in together and find out are they using a jogging app, are they\u2019re using a help app that I can either target or buy the information from and put all the pieces together and find out exactly who is where. They didn\u2019t do anything brilliant here. They did something that If you put enough effort into it, you could put all the pieces together.
\nTerry Gerton It might not be brilliant, but it certainly is frightening. If an individual service member or even a federal employee, a civilian federal employee gets a message that says, we know who you are and we know where you are, that\u2019s going to have an immediate impact. What is the objective of the hackers here in this situation?
\nRon Zayas I think there are usually two directions that they go. One is strictly morale. And where you\u2019re saying, as frightening as that is for the military person, think about the family member. Think about somebody going after the family and saying, we know that your loved one is over there, we know what they\u2019re doing and we can attack them at any time. Or, attacking the family because they know that one individual is not there and what that does to morale when you are a service member and your spouse or your children might be attacked, whether it\u2019s financially, whether it is with physical threats or whatever it may be, that you can\u2019t be there to help. That\u2019s truly one, and I think that that\u2019s the biggest vector that we\u2019re probably seeing the type of information that\u2019s being released here. The other vector is to really look at how can we use, if we know a lot about that service member, we can probably guess passwords. We can probably guess what access they have. We can get into their email and then use that to scam others to get their credentials and work our way up. Many ransomware attacks, for example, today, I think it\u2019s something like 70% aren\u2019t going through the servers. They\u2019re going through the individuals to get to the organization. It just so happens that these people work for one of the most critical organizations that our country has.
\nTerry Gerton Ron Zayas is CEO of Ironwall. Ron, everybody that we\u2019re talking about here, every federal employee, every member of the military has clicked through cyber training. Don\u2019t click on these kinds of phishing emails, don\u2019t respond, you know, report them. But you talked about this being the soft underbelly, the most vulnerable channel of hacking. What can we do to make this more difficult?
\nRon Zayas And I think there\u2019s two points here to bring up. Number one is we all have had training and I\u2019ve been doing this for 30 years. I\u2019m a security expert, I\u2019m very sensitive on this. I would be lying if I said I haven\u2019t clicked on something that was very questionable. We are trained to think of the past attacks. Think of things like the Nigerian Prince. Something comes in and says, I don\u2019t know you, but I\u2019ve got $30 million for you, key number one. Key number two, it\u2019s badly written English. It sounds like Yoda wrote it. Key number three, the email is from Ruski @ something.ru. We get all that and we move on. But what happens when it sounds like it\u2019s coming from a family member? What happens when the email is either the real email of your family member or it\u2019s very, very good? So if your family number is John Smith, then it\u2019s johnsmith123@Gmail. That makes sense. What happens when they\u2019re referring to personal things about the trip you took last week or your wife\u2019s nickname or your son\u2019s, you know, birthday coming up? When all of those happen, our defense is just fall. That\u2019s why it\u2019s a soft underbelly and all of that is based upon information, so just like everything else, If you\u2019re going after drugs you cut off the money. If you\u2019re going after weapons, you cut out the money. Well, in our society today, you cut off the information. What we need to do is to understand that our military, like federal employees, are being targeted by the jobs that they do. It\u2019s a responsibility of the organizations that they work for, in my opinion, to help cut off that information and to pull that information back from organizations that are selling it without any regard to who they\u2019re selling to or why they\u2019re selling it other than it\u2019s a $500 billion a year business.
\nTerry Gerton What actually would you propose as policies or practices to cut off the information flow that you just described?]]><\/p>\n

Ron Zayas Four things that I would say, one is policy, we should be looking at ways to protect people\u2019s information more than letting it be out there. And I understand your point of, it\u2019s already out there, but really they want us to be victims and they can be anybody. And they want to get into the mentality that there\u2019s nothing we can do, but we can and there are lots of things that we can today. Number one is to continue to talk to your elected officials, to your employer and say, we need the policies in place that make it harder for people to steal our information. Today, there are only about 16 states that have some protection. California leads by far. And now there\u2019s a bill before the Congress that would really tend to water down those protections and stop states from doing more. We need to go the opposite direction and understand that\u2019s not right for our military. That\u2019s not for federal employees. That\u2019s right for people in the country. The second thing to understand is that your employer has a responsibility in this too, not only to protect themselves as they do with other cybersecurity, but to protect the people who are being targeted simply because they work. And there\u2019s lots of economical ways that businesses can help do this. The third thing is there are companies, and this is self-serving, this is what my company does, but that we go out there, we find, we target and we remove that information. That\u2019s what employers could be paying for. Unfortunately, more and more people, we\u2019re paying for that. We protect more than a million people in the U.S. and they\u2019re paying to do all this. And then the fourth thing is that we need to understand as individuals that if somebody asked you for your social security number, you wouldn\u2019t give it to them. Your mobile number is as important as your social security number. If I know your mobile number, I know who you are. I can find out who your family is. You don\u2019t change your mobile number even when you move anymore. So don\u2019t give out information. When somebody says, give me your mobile, number give me your email, and they\u2019re asking for it like candy, start saying no, or start doing things like having alternate phone numbers, alternate email address that you can change constantly so that you can\u2019t be tracked. It\u2019s a lot of work and it makes more sense to hire some people in this case to be able to remove all that information for you, but don\u2019t give it out as if it were candy, no more than you would give out your credit card or your social security now.
\nTerry Gerton That is really deep and expansive advice. I\u2019m thinking for people who don\u2019t live in the cyber threat world all the time, that they\u2019re just going about their day job, they are taking care of the kids, walking the dog, doing whatever, I think we might have a failure of imagination here. And so when you look at the field from an expert perspective, what do you see coming next down the road?
\nRon Zayas Well, it continues to expand what that information is. Understand that what\u2019s coming up is that, and what part of it is already here, is when you have information, you can target somebody. So if you were going to scam somebody and you could learn everything about them, that gives you an advantage. But you still implement one by one. AI allows you to implement that in ways that are very targeted across hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. And then you can use video, you can use audio to replicate what is out there. Understand that as humans, we evolved to work together. We evolved to see other people and say, I trust somebody or I don\u2019t trust somebody because I need to do that. AI makes all of that fakeable, for lack of a better word, even if that were a real word. It allows it at scale to turn information and to weaponize it. That\u2019s what we\u2019re up against. And it\u2019s very hard when you, you know, my parents are in their upper eighties. They are very intelligent and well-educated people. But if they receive a phone call, from one of their grandchildren. That is their voice and sounds like they\u2019re in danger, any training is going to go out the window. They are going to respond to that. AI can do that, and it can find that information out in lots of other ways. We have to cut off the flow of information. And I understand we\u2019re all living our busy lives. That\u2019s why a lot of times we hire other companies to do this and remove it on a daily basis. But we also have to understand that just like we had safe words with our kids about strangers, we have to do that too. We have to have some things that are shared that we don\u2019t put on social media. And please stop oversharing on social media. If you have these private words, these private things, when something like this comes up, you can ask that question. Oh, I\u2019m so sorry, Timmy, that you\u2019re in Spain and have been arrested and need $500. Can you please tell me that magic word we have together? And it stops right there, as long as you haven\u2019t shared it anywhere else. These are little things that we can do and start showing our families and our kids what the danger is. It isn\u2019t about being scammed for $500, it isn\u2019t your credit card being ripped off. It\u2019s really about your personal safety and the integrity of your family and what people can use to exploit.
\n\u00a0Copyright
\n \u00a9\u00a02026 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.<\/p>\n

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