Data Security , Encryption Report: FTP protocol security gaps expose millions of systems April 21, 2026 Share By SC Staff (Adobe Stock) About half of 6 million internet-connected systems using the legacy File Transfer Protocol continue to lack encryption, making them vulnerable to cyberattacks, according to SecurityWeek . While the number of internet-exposed FTP hosts declined by 40% since 2024, nearly a million hosts without encryption had no AUTH TLS on the scanned port, while 813,000 sought passwords before creating an encrypted channel and over 170,000 had no explicit TLS support, findings from a Censys report revealed. Geographically, the majority of FTP-accessible systems are in the United States, with large numbers also in China, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, and France. Major providers include China Unicom, Alibaba, OVH, Hetzner, KDDI, and GoDaddy. Experts recommend replacing FTP with more secure options like SFTP or FTPS to protect data transfers. "For most use cases, FTP can be replaced without significant disruption. If FTP must remain, enabling Explicit TLS is a configuration change, not a protocol upgrade, and both Pure-FTPd and vsftpd support it natively," said Censys. SC Staff Related Government Regulations House OKs short-term renewal for surveillance program SC Staff April 21, 2026 Legislation that would provide a 10-day extension for Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has been approved by the House, representing a setback for President Donald Trump and House GOP leaders, who had sought an 18-month renewal, according to The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Data Security Over 400K records allegedly stolen from major Dutch webshop Bol, data leaked SC Staff April 21, 2026 Major Dutch online store Bol, which also operates in Belgium, had information from more than 400,000 of its Belgian users allegedly compromised by the hacker using the alias "Jeffrey Epstein," reports Cybernews. Breach France confirms identity document agency hack SC Staff April 21, 2026 The French Interior Ministry has disclosed a cyberattack against the country's National Agency for Secure Documents' ANTS platform, which is being used for driver's license, passport, and ID issuance, according to Security Affairs. Related Events Cybercast Beyond the Hype: The Cybersecurity Trends CISOs are Keeping an Eye on in 2026 On-Demand Event Cybercast Beyond the data perimeter: Why next-generation DSPM is the foundation for modern data security On-Demand Event Virtual Conference Securing the Future of Finance: Strategies to Counter Modern Cyber Threats On-Demand Event Get daily email updates SC Media's daily must-read of the most current and pressing daily news Business Email By clicking the Subscribe button below, you agree to SC Media Terms of Use and Privacy Policy . Subscribe Related Terms Byte Diffie-Hellman Digital Signature Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) End-to-End Encryption GPG (GNU Privacy Guard) One-Way Encryption Public-Key Forward Secrecy (PFS) Signals Analysis Stream Cipher You can skip this ad in 5 seconds