“Every second of 2022, 10 internet users have lost their data ” says lead researcher at Surfshark, Agneska Sablovskaja.

Research by Surfshark has outlined the countries that suffered the most data breaches, with Australia in ninth place. The top five countries that were involved in the most significant data leaks in 2022 were Russia, China, United States, France and Indonesia. The report stated Russia had the highest breach density, affecting 718 accounts leaked per thousand people. 

The Medibank breach affected more than half of all Australian email accounts that were leaked. But, Australia’s situation has improved by 65 percent compared to 2021 results. Globally, the report indicated that a total of 310.9 million accounts were breached in 2022, as opposed to the 959 million accounts in 2021. 

“While these numbers remain unsettling, we’re happy to report an immense global decrease of 68% compared to last year.” 

“Some countries, including U.S., India and Brazil, managed to improve their situation, while Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Russia experienced the biggest surges in data breaches year-over-year,” Sablovskaja says.

Australia was ranked 15th in 2021, but experienced the most severe data breaches in Australian history in 2022. Healthcare provider Medibank lost 2.1 million email accounts, with 1.8 million of those being Australian origin. Furniture giant, Amart, was also among the biggest in 2022 for Australia, 103,000 accounts were leaked with warranty details. 

Russia was the most breached country

On a worldwide scale, European accounts made up half of the total breaches in 2022, with nearly 70 percent of them being leaked were Russian accounts. Up until 2021, the United States remained the single most breach country until the invasion of Ukraine. 

A third of all accounts in Russia were leaked with the courier service CDEK and news portal NGS.ru exposing 19 million Russian accounts each. Following this, the third-largest Russian breach was of Gemotest, a medical laboratory network, which exposed another 6 million Russian users. 

To provide the market an unbiased lens of the most impactful campaigns of the year, the neuroanalytics team of analysts were able to evaluate and rank all of the ads through a patented technology. 

How does science determine the best ads?

To identify the most effective ads, the company tracked second-by-second changes across multiple areas of the brain. This included memorability, brand impact, likability, emotionality and attention to provide a Neuro Impact Factor (NIF). It also recorded a percentile ranking of creative impact against a database of 5000 ads developed over 15 years of research.

Brain activity was monitored and captured through a comprehensive volume of categories, brands, and ad length across the free-to-air broadcast structure which included watching a full program with the ad breaks. 

Neuro-Insight has outlined that the greatest neuro-impact and strongest chance of guiding future behaviour was carefully observed with its content, context and delivery working in unison. It revealed that every advertiser embedded a developed brand personality and distinctive brand assets within a context-driven narrative to promote a product, service or feature. 

Neuro-Insight APAC’s director of client solutions, Casey Kudrenko explains the importance of understanding neuroscience solutions in advertising. 

“We are often asked ‘What are the best ads on air at the moment?’ and whether these are 15 or 30 seconds, product or brand and which categories reign supreme. So it’s great for the neuro to objectify that it can be all of the above! We witness campaigns that have greater neuro-impact and greater in-market ROI trigger emotion, yes; however we also see the tactile ads that leverage their existing assets to trigger rational price points and promos.”

Which ads were the most impactful?

Coming in at first, was the Harvey Norman’s Surface Pro 8 advertisement, which injected branding bookends, banners, product demonstrations, and stylish messaging into the narrative of an ambitious entrepreneurial artist to fuel long-term memory encoding. The results from Neuro-Insight showcased that the segment triggered the highest neuro-peak features of a skiing athlete with the text, ‘Experience the Best’, as the company signifies it was strategically positioned prior to the critical mater branding frame. Neuro-Insight explains, Harvey Norman’s smart use of priming within the Olympic program’s context fuelled memory encoding at key branding moments, which made the campaign a clear winner. 

At second, Cheer’s Bring a Little, triggered emotional processing and tugging at the core of grocery buyers. 

Creative meshed with science

Neuro-Insight APAC’s general manager, Brian Hill explained, “Creative excellence and effectiveness of the industry’s output should be celebrated. Interestingly, the top ads have nothing in common! They’re 30’s, 15’s, TV promos, product and brand. But what the ads do have in common is that they achieved high levels of long-term memory encoding and what we’ve seen proven time and again in our work with clients is the direct correlation between long-term memory encoding and real-world sales. Neuro-Insight will continue to publish its industry benchmark every quarter so that more advertisers can get closer to the powerful intersection between science, marketing, and creativity.”

In a statement released by the company, it confirmed that all Medibank, ahm and international student customers’ personal data has been exposed in the cyber hack.

The company has been in constant communication with its customers, updating their findings in their investigations every few days. Although the data has been accessed, the company has not confirmed where the data has been stolen. 

Cyber security experts have told the ABC that the Medibank breach is worse than the Optus as it involves medical information. As data breaches are continuing around Australia, how has Medibank communicated with its customers? The company is ensuring to keep communication with its customers, as emails and its website is regularly updated. 

What are Medibank doing to help its customers? 

Medibank is offering financial support for its customers who are in a vulnerable position because of the crime, the company has outlined customers who are in this position to contact them directly. 

The company has also offered free identity monitoring services for its customers who have had their primary ID compromised. It has also stated it will cover the fees for the re-issue of identity documents that have been compromised because of the crime. 

What type of information has been accessed?

Medibank has released that the hackers have been exposed to names, addresses, date of birth, Medicare numbers, policy numbers, phone numbers and claims data. They also have accessed some passport details in regards to international student policies. 

There has been many backlashes on the poor crisis management by Optus, however, not many have criticised Medibank’s handling of the cyber attack.

The Sydney Morning Herald has outlined that the former head of government’s Australian Cyber Security Centre, Alastair MacGibbon did not make any remarks about Medibank’s cyber attack. It may be because of Medibank’s constant updates, even though almost four million of its customers may have been affected.

Despite Medibank’s constant communications with its members and the public, they are investigating the data that has been collected by the hacker.